“I know about your healing factor,” said Major Jones, ‘ ‘but even so, are you sure you should be walking? When my men fished you out of that puddle, you had a concussion, internal injuries, and were nearly drowned to boot.”
“A mere bag o’ shells, darlin’. Don’t believe me, talk to your boss,” Wolverine said with a grin, referring to Colonel Sean Morgan, the head of SAFE and a former member of U.S. Army Intelligence. “He and I had a scrape in Yugoslavia once where I came out lookin’ a helluva lot worse than this.” When one of his guards removed the manacles, he instantly reached for a smoke.
Major Jones turned back toward the mutant team leaders, Dracula, and Carla. “What’s your next move?” the SAFE agent asked. “Maybe we can support you.”
‘ ‘My disobedient daughter here forsook me to serve a sorcerer called Belasco,” said Dracula.
“A sorcerer?” asked Major Jones dubiously. Dracula’s mouth tightened at the interruption.
Kitty grinned. “Just say ‘super-villain’ in your report. It will make life easier all around.”
“Carla will now,” Dracula continued, “tell us where her new master can be found.”
“No!” said Carla, thrashing futilely in the elder vampire’s grasp. “I won’t! You can’t make me!”
Turning to her again, Dracula stared into her eyes. As the seconds dragged by, Carla’s snarl gradually changed to a smirk of satisfaction.
“I command you,” Dracula gritted, “open your mind to me.”
“No,” said the prisoner. “When I woke and saw you, it rattled me, and I was still weak from the lightning, and that’s how you made me unmask myself. But you can never force me to betray him. I belong to him now, not you, never you again!”
Finally Dracula broke eye contact with her and turned toward Storm, something that might almost have been human dismay in his bone-white, arrogant face. “She’s right,” the vampire said softly, as if it were only to the woman he professed to love that he cared to confess his failure. “Belasco has given her the strength to withstand me.”
“But maybe not to withstand me,” said Phoenix. “I believe this is my area of expertise even more than yours.” Dracula eyed her appraisingly. “Indeed. Then I will continue to apply my powers of coercion to support of your efforts, and we’ll see what can be done.”
Jean took a deep breath and let it out slowly, calming herself and focusing her power for the task at hand. Although her talents had served to bring Excalibur and the X-Men together, and to help fend off the federal agents in the battle just concluded, she nonetheless felt that thus far, she hadn’t been very useful. This was her chance to redeem herself.
Dracula turned Carla around to face her, and she gazed into the female vampire’s eyes. The crimson orbs burned with defiance and an infinite capacity for malice. Jean thrust at them as if her psi powers were a dagger, or their teammate Psy-locke’s psychic knife, trying to plunge it into the mind behind them.
Her first effort rebounded from a powerful shield. Perhaps because the defense was the product of Belasco’s infernal magic, it felt different than any such barrier she’d encountered before. Simply touching it made her wince.
Sensing that Phoenix’s attempt had failed, Carla laughed and spat in her face, but if she wanted to see the telepath recoil in disgust, she was disappointed. Already preparing for a second probe, Jean was primarily cognizant of phenomena on the psychic plane. She barely even noticed the glob of saliva, nor did it seem important enough for her to bother wiping it off her cheek. The rain would sluice it away.
She reached for Carla’s psyche once again. This time she didn’t try to smash through the shield. Instead, unpleasant though it was to touch, she methodically pried at it, searching for holes, seams, and other weak spots. Dracula’s power pounded away beside her own, hammering the psychic armor as steadily and relentlessly as a piledriver. His essence was a foul thing too, and she was just as glad that, oriented on Carla as she was, she couldn’t perceive it with utter clarity.
She found the relatively vulnerable spots she was seeking.
They weren’t entirely unlike the joints in a suit of metal armor, or the pressure points of the human body. But the shield was so cunningly made that she couldn’t get a grip on any of them to yank them open. Finally she withdrew to catch her breath.
Feeling her departure, Carla laughed wildly. “You can’t do it, can you? The master is too strong for you!”
“Lady,” said Jean, “you couldn’t be more wrong.”
She hurled herself at Carla’s mind a third time, this time in a lightning series of thrusts at the weak spots she’d just identified. Gradually the shield began to resonate, rather the way a bridge shakes if a company of soldiers is foolish enough to march across it in step.
Had Carla been a telepath, trained in psychic combat, she might have been able to manipulate the shield to prevent the stress, like a swordsman deflecting an opponent’s cuts in such a way as to keep them from hacking his buckler apart. But as it was, her defense was purely passive, as if she were simply hidng behind a wall, and if attacked properly, any wall can be demolished.
The shield shattered. Carla screamed in pain and rage. For Jean, still primarily perceiving the psychic world, the shrill cry sounded tinny and far away. She regarded the mindscape of thought, emotion, and memory that suddenly unfurled before her, striving to perceive the order in what, as was sometimes the case in the first split second of contact, appeared to be a chaotic jumble.
Then everything imploded, distorting and folding. Crying out in dismay, Jean clutched at Carla’s essence, but couldn’t hold on to it. In a moment, nothing remained but darkness with a point of crimson light at its center.
The glow expanded, resolving into the image of a man with horns and a pointed tail. A long sword with a golden hilt hung at his side. Nicely done, Belasco said, smiling. Despite all I did to hinder your progress, you and your allies captured Carla, and now you’ve dissolved the rather potent enchant-merit I wove to protect the contents of her mind. What a pity that all your efforts were in vain.
That, replied Phoenix, remains to be seen. She considered attacking Belasco directly now that they were in some sort of psychic communication, but she suspected that he would never have revealed himself unless confident that she was no threat to him in this particular arena. Instead, as surreptitiously as possible, she groped about in the void, trying to find where he’d hidden Carla’s thoughts away from her view,
Belasco chuckled. Spoken like an X-Man. Never say die. Perhaps it won’t even daunt you to learn that the true Rogue has succumbed to my blandishments, and is arriving at my sanctuary even as we speak.
Jean could feel that he was telling the truth, and it made her sick with dismay. It doesn ’t matter, she replied, straggling to believe it. We’re still going to stop you, and we’re going to save her.
I can’t imagine how, the sorcerer said. Or wait, perhaps I can. Conceivably you think that I can’t abide here inside dear Carla’s head, preventing you from riffling her memories, and attend to my business with Rogue at the same time. In point of fact, that’s absolutely correct. But unfortunately for you, in a moment it will cease to be a problem.
My child, Belasco continued, and now Jean could tell that he was addressing Carla, I gave you more power than your undead form was ever meant to bear. At certain moments it has been a heavy burden, has it not?
Yes, master, said the vampire from the emptiness. Jean gazed in that direction, reaching, searching, finally spotting another psyche shimmering in the distance ...
Now, said Belasco, you may lay your burden down.
Perhaps at that moment Jean achieved renewed contact with Carla and felt her surge of terror, or perhaps it was only intuition that warned her of what was about to happen. In any case, she frantically withdrew her awareness back into her own body and screamed, “Push her away!”
Dracula instantly gave Carla a shove. Phoenix encased the female vampire in a telekinetic bubble
an instant before Belasco released all the magic with which he’d imbued her, the awesome reservoir of energy which had made her as strong as Rogue, at once.
Jean groaned with the strain of containing the explosion. The flash was as blinding and the boom as deafening as Ororo’s lightning display, and afterwards, not a trace of Carla remained.
“What happened?” demanded Major Jones “Belasco sensed it when I forced my way into her mind,” said Jean. “He appeared there himself and killed her to prevent us from finding out where he’s hiding.”
“Only you got there ahead of him,” said Kitty, “so you already had found out.” She hesitated. “Tell me I’m right.” For a moment, Jean was certain she was going to cry.
Chapter 14
Spastic with the pain of her hunger but still as strong as ever, Rogue nearly tore down the tall, weathered church door before finally managing to fumble it open. Whimpering, she staggered through the shadowy vestibule and down the endless length of the nave, toward the scarlet figure standing behind the bloodstained basalt altar.
Smiling, he let her clamber up onto the dais and kneel before him unassisted, but once she did, he traced a symbol on her brow with the claw on his index finger. The hunger abated, and he lifted her to her feet.
“Welcome,” he said. “Do you know me?”
She took in the ruddy skin and the horns. For a moment, something about his appearance vaguely alarmed her, but then it was all right. “Yes,” she said. “You’re Belasco. You’re my master.”
“Very good,” he said, “And you, I think, are at least as much Helen as Rogue now.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, and yet she did. Perhaps that division in her mind should have troubled her, but as long as the hunger wasn’t twisting her guts, it was easier just to commend herself to his care and not even try to think. “I believe so,” she said.
“Look around,” he said, gesturing toward the pews. Turning, she took in the pale, gaunt figures peering up at her. She supposed that they’d been there right along, but she’d been so frantic to reach Belasco that she hadn’t even noticed them until now.
“See how they envy you your triumph,” the sorcerer murmured. “How they now wish that I had chosen them.” Rogue studied their intent, burning eyes and saw that it was so.
They’d always been her rivals for the master’s affection, but surely it would never be so again. She grinned at them.
“We’ve reached the penultimate stage of our work,” Belasco continued. “A journey to a realm that no one save myself has seen in living memory. A place where we will silence your thirst forever, and transmute the base metal of your being into something infinitely more precious than gold. Will you accompany me?”
“Yes, angel,” she replied. Some of the observers in the nave laughed. She had no idea why, nor did it trouble her.
“Excellent,” Belasco said. He drew his sword. Its rune-graven blade shone with a sickly phosphorescence, and, sensing the malignant power whispering in the blade, she had to repress an urge to flinch from it. At some moment in the past, the weapon might have cut her, although she couldn’t actually recall the occasion. Closing his black eyes, the homed man reverently kissed the sword, raised it high above his head, and finally touched the point to the altar.
The intricately carved stone rumbled and shuddered as if about to break apart, but instead, it flowed into another form, growing taller and narrower, smoother and blacker, until it resembled a doorway into darkness hanging unsupported in the air. A cold draft blew from the other side.
Metal hissed against metal as Belasco returned his sword to its scabbard. He took Rogue’s hand, his talons pricking her skin. “Come,” he said, and escorted her through the opening.
On the other side was a path of sorts, a luminous gray ribbon extending through a void which, at first glance, might have been mistaken for outer space, a blackness begemmed with stars and nebulae. But Rogue could still breathe, and the temperature, while markedly colder than in the ruined church, would still have been tolerable even for an ordinary human.
For a moment all was silent, and then a vast rustling sounded in the depths beneath her feet, a noise that made her think of a swarm of cockroaches crawling over and over one another. For some reason, it was utterly dreadful, and it froze her in her tracks.
Belasco chuckled. “Don’t be afraid. It’s only a sampling of the petty devils that infest the spaces between realities. They wouldn’t dare attempt to harm the chosen one of the Elder Gods, and I’d scour them from the face of the darkness if they did.” As if in response to the threat, the scratching, seething sound subsided. Reassured, Rogue allowed him to escort her onward.
“When you gaze upon the Dark Ones,” Belasco continued, “then may you rightly cower in fear. I know you’ve encountered some extraordinary things during your time with the X-Men, but nothing can have prepared you for this. The sheer size of them! The unfathomable intricacy of their forms, and the suffocating aura of their power!”
An opalescent shimmering appeared in the blackness ahead. To Rogue, it looked as if the floating path would lead right up to it.
“But you know,” mused the sorcerer, “as awesome as their bodies are, their most profound grandeur lies in the quality of their spirits. They know I adore them. I’ve spent centuries striving to liberate them, and during all that time have probably represented their only hope of release. The first time I tried and failed to return them to Earth, they punished me by allowing me to languish in suspended animation for centuries. The second, they imprisoned me in Limbo. Still later, when they judged that Illyana wouid make them a better servant than myself, they immediately stripped me of my power, only restoring it after she spurned them. They’re perfect, you see, in a way that we who come from human stock can only dream of. Perfectly devoid of love or mercy. Perfectly selfish, ruthless, and cruel. That purity, the absolute truth of their maleficence, is the most sublime and beautiful thing in all creation.”
Somewhere deep inside herself, Rogue thought, He's completely insane, but the insight didn’t trouble her. It was simply a string of words, with no emotion and very little intrinsic meaning attached.
One moment, the shimmer ahead still seemed a long way off, as if they might have to walk for hours to reach it. Then, abruptly, seemingly in the blink of an eye, they were standing directly in front of it. It was made up of thousands of complex, luminous, multicolored designs floating in the air. Rogue vaguely supposed that they must be magical symbols or talismans, crowded so closely together that they seemed to form a solid, three-dimensional structure. With the narrow tunnel leading through the base of it, the glowing rectangular mass reminded her of the barbican of Banshee’s castle in Ireland.
“Behold the wards of the thrice-cursed Agamotto,” said Belasco. “The locks on the door of the Dark Ones’ prison. Tonight we two will break them open.”
Rogue felt a dull twinge of curiosity, and perhaps another emotion too fleeting for her even to identify it. “How?” she asked. “And why do you need me?”
Belasco smiled. “Good question. I didn’t realize there was still that much intellectual activity inside that poor, ravaged head of yours.” They proceeded down the tunnel. “The answer is that like many barriers, Agamotto’s prison is stronger on one side than the other. If the Elder Gods were outside it, on Earth, they and I, conjuring together, could dissolve it. The problem being, of course, that they can’t get to our world because they’re trapped inside.
“However, as I studied the X-Men, it occurred to me that a creature like yourself could become the avatar of the Dark Ones. Visit them, take on their personae and powers, and carry them to Earth to serve their needs.” Even after she became their vessel, Agamotto’s magic would fail to recognize the correspondence, and so have no power to detain her.
“It would have been convenient if I could simply have transformed one of my followers into a suitable tool, but that wasn’t possible. I knew how to replicate your appearance, your str
ength, and your power of flight, as I did with dear, martyred Carla, but not your unique form of vampirism. Thus I had no recourse but to enlist you in my cause, and deal with the inevitable complications—your fellow X-Men—as best I could.” He grinned. “Fortunately, I’ve handled them very well indeed, and I trust you’ll agree that the fact they tried and failed to stop us makes our triumph all the sweeter.”
They reached the end of the passage, then stepped into the world beyond.
The first thing Rogue noticed was the choking stench, seemingly consisting of the stinks of every foul, corrosive, or rotting substance known to exist. The second was the heavy liquid noise, suggestive of viscous sludge flowing and dripping, that sounded all around her. The third was the way the ground shifted beneath her boots.
But initially, she could see very little, because she seemed to have stepped into a realm of absolute darkness, with no celestial bodies whatsoever shining in the ebon sky. If not for the light of Agamotto’s magic gleaming behind her, she would have been completely blind. Even as it was, it took time for her eyes to adapt sufficiently for her to make out the chaotic jumble of shapes rearing up around her.
At first she took them for hillocks, heaps of refuse, derelict buildings, or a mixture of all three. Only gradually, meanwhile doubting her own perception, did she recognize them as living creatures.
Their shapes were irregular and complex, labyrinthine networks of lumps, maws, and twitching limbs, so much so that it was virtually impossible to tell where one god’s flesh ended and another’s began. Many of them looked raw and ragged, with slimy gaps and gashes in their substance, as if some plague were eating them away. The surface beneath Rogue’s feet shuddered once again, and, looking down, she realized she was standing on one of them, that their sprawling masses completely covered the ground. Or perhaps there wasn’t any ground, just extensions of their bodies reaching out and out and down and down.
Belasco pointed. “There’s Syxra, Mother of Knives,” he whispered rapturously. “Zo, Who Makes the Dead Weep. Kle-jan Kaa, Devourer of Angels and Breaker of Cities. Perhaps now you comprehend how I will end your suffering. For how could you ever hunger again after you’ve gorged on the essences of beings as full of power as these?”
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