But now, they didn’t. Rather, they hovered out of his reach. He wondered if his fierce defense had finally thrown a scare into them, if they’d keep their distance while he crawled to the altar. Then he noticed that the structure of lights above his head was pulsing brighter and brighter, and sensed that somewhere a portal was beginning to open.
The demons weren’t hanging back because they were too afraid to face him but because they thought they’d already won. They knew Piotr couldn’t drag himself all the way to Belasco in the seconds remaining. Why, then, should they endanger themselves any further? In another minute, the Dark Ones themselves would no doubt destroy Colossus and his teammates.
In the desecrated, smoke-filled apse, fighting furiously but uselessly, Kurt leapt and teleported around and around Belasco. A somersault left him facing in Piotr’s direction, his yellow eyes narrowed, and the steel man realized that his friend had observed that, though injured, he was presently in the clear.
Nightcrawler displaced himself three more times, so quickly that the muffled bangs nearly merged into one report. Then, materializing in front of Belasco, spinning his saber in a circle, he twirled the phosphorescent sword from the magician’s hand.
An instant later, Belasco dropped the blue-furred mutant with a blaze of sorcery. But by then, the enchanted sword was tumbling through the air straight toward Piotr, and judging from the way its owner was still oriented on Kurt, he didn’t realize that the other X-Man was now in a position to make use of it.
Unfortunately, the one-eyed demon did recognize the danger. Dashing forward, it snatched the weapon from the air.
Heedless of the flare of agony the lurching motion produced in his broken leg, Colossus hurled himself forward, grabbed the creature’s shank just above its cloven hoof, and yanked it down to the floor. He reared above it, pummeled it until it stopped straggling, then ripped the sword from its grasp. His skin crawled at the weapon’s touch.
Turning back toward the dais at the front of the church, he saw Belasco reaching for Kurt’s throat. Gripping the sword part way down the blade, as if it were a javelin, Piotr threw it with all his strength.
Some of the demons bellowed or howled a warning. Alarmed at last, Belasco pivoted and began to mouth a word of power. Too late. The sword plunged into his breast, twelve inches of the gory blade shooting from his back.
His face a mask of agony and disbelief, Belasco reeled backward, and a corona of crackling black flame engulfed his body. In another instant, it consumed him utterly, not leaving so much as a wisp of ash behind.
The floating construct of light blinked out of existence. Piotr felt the silent crash as the gate to the Dark Ones’ prison slammed shut. He thought he sensed a vast chorus of alien voices screaming and roaring in frustration, but perhaps that was only his imagination.
Across the church, demons simply faded away. Maybe, with Belasco gone, nothing anchored them to the material world, or maybe, now that the Elder Gods wouldn’t be returning after all, they simply saw no reason to remain. If any of Dracula’s progeny had even survived the battle, they were apparently now slinking away as well. They certainly weren’t attacking the X-Men any further.
Piotr shuddered in the grip of a savage exultation, and tears slipped from his metal eyes. But in a moment, far sooner than he might have expected, the emotion passed, and he remembered he had teammates who were down. Wiping his face, he looked up at Kurt. “Are you all right?”
“Belasco paralyzed me,” gritted Nightcrawler, laboring to articulate the words, “but the effect is passing. Nice teamwork, mein freund. Are you well?”
“A broken leg,” said Piotr. “A few bums. It will all heal. How did you know Belasco’s own sword could hurt him?” “I didn’t,” Kurt admitted. “But I could tell it was magic, and I knew my weapon wasn’t cutting him. How are the others? I can’t quite lift my head yet to look for myself.” Gingerly, now far more conscious of his aches and pains, Piotr hauled himself around to check.
Cyclops was kneeling beside the still-motionless Phoenix and Rogue, and the just-starting-to-stir Wolverine. After a moment, he grinned a most uncharacteristic grin. “They’re all alive!” he shouted.
“Thank the Goddess,” panted Ororo, slumping back in her comer.
In the vestibule, Amanda crumpled to one knee, but it looked to Piotr as if she wasn’t wounded, just exhausted. Disciplined martial artist that she was, Kitty didn’t permit herself to display her fatigue to the same degree, but, breathing deeply, she leaned heavily on a spear. In contrast, unbruised and unbloodied, Dracula stood as straight and moved as lithely as ever, with only his ragged clothing to show that he’d just emerged from a battle.
“Everyone is all right,” said Piotr to Kurt.
“Is it really over?” asked Kitty of the company at large.
“It is indeed,” said Dracula with a smile. “The war is won, and it’s time to claim the spoils. A bride for me, and a throne and eternal life for Ororo.” Turning toward the windrider, he held out his pallid hand.
Chapter 16
Ororo’s mouth turned dry with fear. She was no match for Dracula now. She’d never fully recovered her strength since Rogue had drained her, and the battle had all but exhausted her powers. She doubted she could even run away. At the moment, the vampire could almost certainly fly faster than she could.
“No!” Kitty cried, sounding very young. “You promised to be our ally!”
“Only until we defeated Belasco,” Dracula replied, “and happily, that has now come to pass.”
Shadowcat leveled her spear, bellowed a kiai, and thrust the weapon at his chest. With literally inhuman speed, the vampire sidestepped the attack, grabbed Kitty with one hand, and slapped her with the other. The mutant hung limp in his grasp.
Scott lurched to his feet and, hobbling forward, peppered Dracula with optic blasts. The scarlet rays were feeble compared to those Cyclops could fire when he was at full power. They didn’t even jolt the vampire backward.
Sneering, Dracula threw the unconscious Shadowcat into Scott, and the two X-Men wound up in a tangled heap on the floor.
Kurt still seemed to be paralyzed, and Amanda was wheezing on her knees. Jean and Rogue were still unconscious, and Wolverine was only just starting to stir. Piotr had somehow risen and was laboriously hopping forward, each hop twisting his features with pain, but Ororo could tell that he’d never cover the length of the church in time to help her, nor, crippled, would he pose a threat to Dracula even if he did. For the moment, she was on her own.
So be it then. Thrusting dread from her mind, she mustered what little remained of her powers, then hurled her most powerful lightning. The dazzling white bolt made Dracula thrash in place while a deafening thunderclap shook the church, shattering several of the stained-glass windows. When the discharge ended, he crumpled to the floor. For a moment, she dared to hope—but then, smiling, he flowed to his feet.
She had no more lightning with which to strike him, so she used the air, hitting him with one frigid blast after another, and, remembering the tactic she’d noticed Scott employing earlier, scooping up and throwing barrages of splintered wood. All to no avail. His head down, his ragged cloak fluttering behind him, Dracula impelled himself inexorably closer, until finally, no matter how she strained to keep it blowing, the wind too forsook her. Her strength exhausted, it took everything she had simply to stand straight and defiant, poised to at least punch at him once before the end.
“That’s why I love you,” said Dracula, his crimson eyes gleaming. “That indomitable spirit. You fought valiantly to the very last. But this time, you can’t escape your destiny. Like these other mortals, you’re battered and exhausted, while I am as strong as ever.”
“You’re forgettin’ somethin’,” a bass voice rasped.
Startled, Dracula pivoted.
“There’s one X-Man who bounces back from a beating just as fast as you do,” the voice continued. Grinning, Wolverine heaved himself up from the floor.
Too bad that cocky statement was a lie. Sure, Logan was gradually recovering from the mauling that last demon had given him before Cyke blasted it back to the netherworld. His wounds were closing, and his strength was trickling back. But he wasn’t fully recovered, not by a long shot. He’d leaned on his healing factor heavily over the course of the day, and even his turbocharged metabolism had to slow down sometime.
But when he’d woken to see Dracula closing in on Ororo. he’d known that his weakness and pain didn’t matter. Nothing did, except keeping die leech away from his intended prey.
And so, drops of his blood spattering to the floor, Wolverine did his best to mask the wave of dizziness that momentarily assailed him. If Dracula realized how rocky he was, he might decide simply to snatch up Storm and dash from the church, and the Canadian was far from sure that he could sprint fast enough to cut him off. He needed the creature in black to believe that the only way out was through him. Or else to want to kill him so badly that he was even willing to delay the pleasure of transforming Ororo to do it. Either way, to stand and fight.
“Come on, dead man,” Logan said, sneering. “We been wantin’ a piece of one another all night, so let’s dance. Or are you gonna back down again, like you did in the armory?”
Dracula smiled. “Some of your comrades may make me worthy servants, but I promise, animal, there will be no immortality for you. Only the corruption of the grave.” One white hand held high and the other low in a skilled hand-to-hand combatant’s guard, he slowly advanced on the smaller man. Studying one another, they began to circle.
Logan was grateful that the vampire hadn’t tried to overwhelm him with an immediate charging attack. Every second that passed restored a bit more of his strength and coordination. When Dracula finally did pounce, hands outstretched and fangs bared, the X-Man managed to dodge, and to gash his opponent’s flank with his right-hand claws.
The undead creature hissed in pain, but when Wolverine pulled his arm back, the ivory skin beneath the torn black clothing was unmarked. Turning, Dracula threw a head punch. Skipping backward, Logan met the blow with a sweep of his left-hand claws. The counterattack should have severed the vampire’s hand at the wrist—indeed, Logan could feel his natural weaponry shearing through bone—but when his claws
ripped free, the appendage was still attached. Sneering. Dracula suddenly pivoted, surprising the mutant with a lightning-fast roundhouse kick that would have shattered any other man’s ribs. As it was, it drove the air from Logan’s lungs and hurled him into the wall. Half dazed with the shock of the two impacts, he barely managed to regain his balance in time to meet the vampire’s follow-up attack.
As the two men fought on, Wolverine ducked, dodged, and blocked madly, doing his best to avoid another such Herculean blow. His unbreakable bones wouldn’t be enough to keep him on his feet if an attack concussed him, or ruptured one of his internal organs. But he was even more concerned to keep Dracula from grappling him. If the leech got his fangs in him, he „ might well be able to seize control of his mind, depriving him of even the will to fight.
Meanwhile, the X-Man cut and stabbed relentlessly, many of his attacks variations on the ko-dachi, short sword techniques he’d mastered while studying kenjutsu in Japan. He concentrated on the lower part of Dracula’s body, and gradually, the vampire’s right hand, the one he was holding higher, began to creep down.
Which was what Logan wanted. Because, while he was no expert on the occult, after the X-Men’s first encounter with Dracula, he’d done a little boning up on the undead. Enough to learn that, while most thrusts and cuts from his adamantium claws could do no more than slow his adversary down for an instant, if he could slice Dracula’s head completely off with one blow, that would kill him sure enough.
Dracula jabbed at the mutant’s face. Wolverine deflected the blow with an otoshi-uke dropping block, then instantly squatted, feinting a stab at the vampire’s belly. Both of Dracula’s hands dropped to defend, and at last his upper body was completely open. Springing into the air, Logan whipped his right-hand claws in an all-out yokomen-uchi side strike at the undead monarch’s neck.
If the X-Man had been fresh and unwounded, he would have been fast enough to pull the maneuver off. As it was, Dracula only barely snapped his left arm up in time to block. Wolverine’s claws bit deep into flesh and bone, but at the same instant, the vampire’s right fist tagged him with a solid uppercut to the jaw, a blow that knocked him to the floor. As he jumped back up, shaken, the taste of blood in his mouth, his eyes met Dracula’s, and he faltered. After a moment, he realized he couldn’t look away, or indeed, move at all.
“It’s over, X-Man,” Dracula said. “Sheathe your claws.”
Logan obeyed, the blades retracting with a faint metallic snakt. For a moment, he didn’t know why he shouldn’t do whatever Dracula said. Indeed, his head was numb and empty of any thoughts at all.
Then the old berserker rage, the feral fury that all the years of therapy and Zen had never truly tamed, welled up inside him, painting the world bloodred and shattering Dracula’s spell. Snarling, his claws leaping from their sockets, Logan hurled himself at the man in black.
Once again, he caught the bloodsucker by surprise, and came within a hair of slashing through his neck. But Dracula whirled aside and hammered him with a one-two combination, the first punch to the head and the second to the chest.
Logan went down once more, and this time, it was considerably harder to get up. His mouth was now full of blood, enough to choke him, which was perhaps the reason he couldn’t catch his breath. Something throbbed inside his torso, while objects in his field of vision divided into two, flowed together once more, and wavered in and out of focus.
Leering, Dracula advanced again, and even the savage beast that Logan had become realized he was in desperate straits.
Though his actions were still fast and deadly enough to annihilate a host of ordinary combatants, Amanda could tell that Wolverine was on his last legs. And Piotr was still yards away from the fracas, not that it looked as if he was in any shape to do more than delay Logan’s death by another instant anyway.
Which meant it was up to her to save her friends. At least, unlike everyone else, she hadn’t sustained any physical punishment. Kurt, Shadowcat, and Dracula had protected her from that. Indeed, she’d caught her second wind. But the struggle to hold back Belasco’s conjuration had virtually drained her reserves of magical power. What, then, could she do?
If she was lucky, one thing. The trick that, as the king of the undead had himself observed, she’d practiced so often that it came more easily than any other.
She waited until the next time Dracula turned his back to her, then waved her hand, trying to attract Logan’s attention. The snarl on the mutant’s face made him look as if he was sunk deep in a bestial frenzy, but even so, perhaps he saw her and divined her intent. Because he stopped dodging back and forth, and by standing his ground, kept his opponent facing in the right direction.
Amanda rose and ran at Dracula. Despite her attempt to move silently, the vampire sensed her approach, pivoted, and struck at her. She saw instantly that, charging forward as she was, she was going to lunge straight into the blow.
Wolverine bellowed and smashed a side-thrust kick to Dra-cula’s midsection. The attack rocked the vampire slightly off balance, and his hand missed Amanda by an inch. Plunging on, she threw her arms around him and tried to teleport.
She and the vampire remained in place while his hands gripped her neck and, his long nails cutting her, jerked her off her feet like a hangman’s noose. Thrashing futilely, already feeling as if she were starved for air, she feared that she’d overestimated her sorcery. Then her sluggish power finally responded to her will. The gloom of the benighted church gave way to dazzling glare.
Dracula screamed and dropped her in the sand. Instinctively she scrambled away from him through the dry, superheated air. Squinting, she discerned that her magic had brought her precisely where she’d want
ed to go. Above her, the sun blazed in a cloudless sky, while the beige dunes of the Sahara rolled away endlessly in all directions, with never a rocky outcropping or a tree to create a patch of shade.
Dropping to one knee, Dracula frantically tried to cover himself with his shredded cloak. It didn’t help much. Amanda stared in horrified fascination as pale, crackling flame danced on his body, quickly spreading to his inky garments as well, and a dark, foul-smelling smoke arose from his immolation.
Possibly recognizing that his attempt to shield himself was merely protracting his agony, the vampire abruptly lurched to his feet and allowed his mantle to fall away from his head. Amanda gasped at the blackened, shriveled, still-burning ruin his face had become. Somehow orienting on her even though his eyes had melted in their sockets, Dracula staggered toward her with crumbling hands extended.
Even in his death throes, he could still be dangerous. She dredged up the strength for one final teleport and left him to his fate.
Chapter 17
Rogue stared down at Jean, who still lay motionless on the floor, now with her fellow X-Man’s tattered brown jacket folded beneath her head. Of them all, the aubum-haired telepath was the last to recover consciousness. Scott sat beside her, holding her hand, while everyone else hovered in the general vicinity.
“Come on,” Rogue groaned.
Ororo put her hand on her shoulder. “Patience, my friend. She’s alive. She’ll be all right.”
But Rogue knew that wasn’t necessarily so. After she’d drained him, Cody had never woken, and Carol Danvers had come back damaged. If she’d hurt Jean, when the teleapth had risked everything to help her—
“I can feel her mind stirring!” Scott exclaimed. Rogue felt a surge of joy, and Kitty let out a cheer.
Jean’s lustrous green eyes opened, then moved back and forth, taking in the circle of teammates peering down at her. “Wow,” she said, her voice so feeble that it was almost inaudible, “you people look awful.”
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