Worthington’s neck muscles were stiff, but, by working in concert with Warren, she was able to turn his head enough so she could locate her own body. It was crumpled in a heap nearby, like a rag doll tossed in a corner. Again, by working together, the two X-Men were able to drag Worthington’s body over to Betsy’s with his hands, his legs not able to support the weight for the time being. Worthington’s hand reached out to brush away the strands of purplish hair that had fallen over her face—Warren’s doing.
Step Two? he asked.
Step Two. Betsy called on her psychic powers once more, and this time it was Worthington’s right hand that began to glow with focused mental energy. As his hand closed into a fist, the psychic dagger formed, coming to a sharpened point inches from her head.
Contact.
“How do you feel?” Warren asked.
“Like someone just rammed a spike into my skull,” Betsy replied with a groan. “Oh, wait—someone did just ram a spike into my skull.” He smiled. “Don’t blame me. Some crazy, beautiful woman took control of my body and made me do it.”
Betsy sighed. “That’s the story of your life, luv—crazy, beautiful women are always taking control of your body. You just happen to enjoy it.”
“Well, a man has his needs ...” He reached down to help her to her feet. “The important thing, though, is that your plan worked.”
She arched an eyebrow and gazed at him. “Well, not all of us are Jean Grey, but we do have our moments. How do you feel?”
Warren frowned. “Like I’m wearing another man’s suit, only it’s made of skin, and the fit feels kinda strange. Creepy.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it—this is my body, right?”
She gently squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll have to figure it out later, luv. Right now, we need to help the profes—”
Betsy froze. Something was wrong—she could sense it; her psychic senses were screaming a warning that threatened to overload her senses. Rubbing her legs to restore the circulation, ignoring the pins-and-needles sensation that stabbed through her limbs, she staggered toward the windows.
“Betts?” Warren asked. “What’s going on?”
She inhaled deeply, catching the scent of ozone that hung so heavily on the slight breeze coming off the Seine; the fine hairs on her arms stood straight up as the air filled with static electricity. Either a major storm system was brewing above the city, or...
But, no—it wasn’t a storm; rather, it was the confirmation of her worst fear.
A curtain of brilliant energy was forming less than a mile away, the top of it lost among the gathering clouds. It hissed and crackled noisily as it began advancing through the streets, gaining speed with each passing second.
“Oh, my God ...” Betsy whispered. “The Cube ...”
Waves of guilt swept over her. She’d failed in her mission—too busy chasing the doppelganger of a dead lover through the alleys and avenues of Paris when she should have been trying to find the Cube and getting it to Roma so she could put things right. She’d wasted precious moments, and now time had run out—for her, for Warren, for the entire universe.
“No.” A look of steely determination suddenly set on Betsy’s features. “There’s still a chance.”
As Warren watched in bewilderment, Betsy raced across the room to the apartment’s front door, snatching up a black canvas carryall from the floor. She ran back to him, rummaging through the bag with one hand while she held it with the other. With a cry of triumph, she pulled out a small metal box, the center of which was dominated by a very large red button.
“Satumyne’s recall device!” Betsy explained. “It’ll take us back to the Starlight Citadel, and then, perhaps, Roma will be able to help us formulate another plan of attack.”
Warren glanced out the window. The Cube energy was drawing closer; in a matter of seconds, they and the apartment would be consumed. “I like the plan. How does it work?”
Betsy slipped an arm around his and held up the device. “Like this.” She stabbed the button.
Instantly, a bluish glow enveloped them, and they both gasped as a powerful current surged through their bodies.
“Satumyne didn’t mention anything about it feeling like this... ” Betsy said through gritted teeth.
And then, with a pop! of displaced air, they were whisked far away from a world being remade in the image of its new master.
A world about to be shaped by the dreams of a fanatic.
2
JOHANN SCHMIDT had never been one for dreams.
Dreams were for the weak—pathetic fantasies designed to in-_ spire hopes and a sense of well-being in the minds of the very louts who conceived them. But hopes for what—a better life? A world existing in harmony? An end to pain, to struggle, to hatred?
Lofty aspirations, perhaps—for those who chose to pursue them— but as delicate as bits of spun sugar in a carnival confection . . . and as easily dissolved.
Dreams were for those who lacked direction, lacked steely determination. A man might desire a better life, but how hard will he work to achieve it? He might wish for an end to misery, but what would he be willing to sacrifice in exchange for it? He might long for a better world, but what steps would he take to create it? Those were the questions that made all the difference—the ones that separated the dreamer .. . from the visionary.
It was the visionary who devised ways to end suffering, fashioned the methods by which other citizens’ lives were enriched, blueprinted the architecture of a harmonious society. Direction, determination, sacrifice—these were the tools with which a man of true vision shaped a better world.
And Johann Schmidt—the man known to the world by the far more chilling name of the Red Skull—had always considered himself a visionary.
Of course, that was not entirely true, though Schmidt would never admit it. But before the “visionary,” before the world-beating supervillain whose name had struck fear in the hearts of men and women everywhere for the better part of six decades, there was “Schmitty,” the street urchin and petty thief, who had no place in his life for dreams or visions—unless they were dreams of power, and visions of his rivals and enemies lying dead at his feet. . .
As an orphan growing up on the streets of Hamburg, Germany, Schmidt had been an outcast among outcasts—a brooding, often violent youth who prowled the streets and back alleys of the port city in search of potential victims. Shopkeepers, artisans, sailors, even police officers— no one was safe from the crippling blows and savage kicks Schmidt administered when the lust for money—or blood—overcame him. But his most brutal attacks were reserved for the Jewish community of Hamburg. In Schmidt’s mind, the Jews, more than any other ethnic or religious group in the city, deserved his ire. They had the best jobs, didn’t they? They had all the money, didn’t they? The fact that the targets of his anger just happened to believe in working honestly for a living, rather than accosting people on darkened streets, then running from the police, never penetrated his mind. Besides, the day would come, he was certain, when he’d be in a position above them, and then he’d spend as much time as possible rubbing it in their faces—and enjoying every moment that he did so.
And yet, despite his beliefs, despite his over-inflated sense of selfworth, Schmidt never rose above the rank of a common criminal, arrested time and again for practically every crime from theft to vagrancy—a faceless nobody destined to die in prison ... or the gutter. The fact that he managed to survive long enough to reach adulthood should have been a sign to him that it might be possible to turn his life around—to make something of himself.
But that was too much effort for Schmidt, who firmly believed that opportunities should come to him, rather than seeking them out. It wasn’t until he was in his early twenties that he finally had to face reality: he was a failure. Of course, that was no fault of his; the entire world had been against him since the day he was born. His parents, the police, the Jews, his fellow criminals—each in their own ways, they had all worked toge
ther to keep him from bettering his life, all plotted to deny him the power he so richly deserved.
Power—that was all Schmidt had ever truly desired. Power to take whatever he desired without consequence. Power to crush his enemies, to grind their faces into the dirt with the heel of his boot, to hear the sweet music of their death rattles as they drew their last breaths. And somewhere in the world, he knew, there was just that kind of power for the taking—power to destroy anyone who had ever crossed him, to let him finally claim what should have always been his.
Unfortunately, he lacked the motivation to go out and find it.
The passing years found him moving from town to town as he wandered across Germany, performing one menial job after another: gravedigger, floorsweeper, farmhand, manure hauler. Lacking a formal education—beyond what life on the streets had taught him—and barely able to read or write, Schmidt spent his days laboring to eke out a living and his nights, more often than not, in a jail cell.
He committed his first murder in 1935, when he was thirty.
He had been working for a Jewish shopkeeper in Magdeburg, sweeping floors and stocking shelves, angry with himself for allowing hunger and a need for shelter to force him into taking yet another low-paying position, when he spied the shopkeeper’s daughter, Esther, watching him. She was a pretty girl, no more than nineteen or twenty, and it had surprised him that anyone, let alone this dark-haired angel who could have her choice of any suitor in town, would show such interest in him.
But he had mistaken her look of pity for one of desire, and, for the first time in his life, fell in love—or what he perceived to be love. Unable to properly express himself, he settled for forcing himself on her. Esther had been horrified by his savage advances and pushed him away.
Smashing her skull with a shovel had been a reflex action for Schmidt, the anger that had been building inside him for three decades at last finding its release point.
But that brutal act did more than momentarily quell his burning rage. As Schmidt stood over her body, the gore-drenched shovel held tightly in trembling hands, his face and clothes slick with her blood . . . he smiled. He had never known such ecstasy .. . such pleasure. It was intoxicating.
For the first time in is life, he suddenly realized, he knew what real power felt like—the power of life and death.
Still, his crime went unpunished—the victim was a Jew, so the local constabulary wasn’t about to trouble itself by launching a full investigation; they quickly closed the case as “death by misadventure”—allowing Schmidt to flee Magdeburg and continue his travels without fear of prosecution .. . travels during which more than one innocent passerby expired from similar “mishaps.”
Eventually, Schmidt found himself in Berlin, where he somehow managed to talk—or coerce—the manager of the most prosperous hotel in the city into offering him employment; the only position available, however, was that of bellhop. Down to his last marks, Schmidt had no choice but to accept, galling as it was to once more find himself performing menial tasks for another boorish cur—this time in an overstarched, gaudily-colored uniform that made him feel like an organ grinder’s monkey, tipping his cap and forcing himself to show gratitude for the handfuls of change tossed at him by the very sort of wealthy louts and tarted-up women he’d spent his entire life despising. Here, again, he became just another faceless drone—a pack mule suitable for nothing more than carrying bags from room to room, taking the abuse doled out by short-tempered guests and his overbearing employers like any other dumb animal being disciplined by a harsh owner. What few dreams he might have possessed—if he’d ever cared to dwell on them— had long been taken from him by the cruelty of the streets during childhood, the harshness of his adult life, the constantly roaring flames of his misplaced anger.
Until that fateful day, that is.
The day he met Adolf Hitler.
Schmidt had heard stories of the man’s meteoric rise to power as the leader of the Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—the National Socialist German Workers’ Party—and the title of “Der Fiih-rer”—Leader of All Germany—that had been bestowed upon him by his followers, but hadn’t paid them much attention; he’d never been one for politics, and talk of such matters bored him. Still, after Hitler attained his goal of becoming Germany’s true leader in March 1933, even Schmidt had to take notice of the changes taking place around him.
The turmoil and hyperinflation collapse of the German economy following the First World War had taken an awful toll on the Weimar Republic and its citizens, both financially and spiritually. It was Hitler and his Nazi Party members who rebuilt the nation, brought pride back to its people, and re-energized business.
For the first time in his life, Schmidt had been awestruck. Here was the sort of power he had longed for, the type of respect he had always desired. He couldn’t help but admire the man. To have come so far, achieved so much, in so little time, apparently! What did it matter if these changes were often brought about by brutal force? So what if others had to suffer, so long as the country was healed with their sweat and blood?
But why this man Hitler? he’d often wondered angrily. Why had Fate chosen a one-time beggar—someone no better than he—to lead Germany to a new Golden Age? Even God was against him, it seemed!
But if it was Fate that had chosen Adolf Hitler to become one of the most feared—and hated—men in history, then it was also Fate that had decided to bring together that same Fascist dictator and an embittered, nondescript bellhop in an encounter that would forever change the world ...
Soon after Hitler and his followers had checked into the hotel, Schmidt had been ordered to deliver refreshments to their suite. He found the leader of his nation screaming in frustration at one of the higher-ranked officers in the Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo—the Secret State Police.
“Why have I no one to turn to?” Hitler cried to the heavens, clearly upset by some failure on the part of his subordinate. “None to depend on? Must I create my own race of perfect Aryans?” In disgust, he had turned away from his henchman—and come face-to-face with a uniformed baggage-handier whose eyes blazed with jealousy, who did not look away as his Fiihrer stared back at him.
“I could teach that bellboy to do a better job than you!” Hitler snapped, looking over his shoulder at his aide. A wicked smile slowly came to his lips as he turned back to Schmidt; clearly, an idea was forming. “Yes, I could . ..”
He could—and did. Hitler himself trained the former street urchin, taking this lump of clay and shaping it into something far more useful; giving it life, meaning, purpose. Teaching Schmidt to focus his anger, his burning hatred for all humanity, and use it as a weapon.
Giving him the power he’d always believed he deserved.
And when the demagogue had finished tutoring his protege on the tenets of National Socialism, on the blueprint of his master plan for world domination, on the particulars of his “final solution” for dealing with the “Jewish problem,” when he was at last satisfied with the results of his labors, this modern-day Frankenstein loosed his monster on Europe and, soon after, across the Atlantic to the United States. He even had a colorful name for this personification of evil he had created:
The Red Skull.
Wearing a bizarre mask that matched his new codename, the monster went forth to spread his master’s doctrines, secure in the knowledge that he—he, Johann Schmidt, petty thief and vandal, brutish thug and murderer—had been chosen by the one true leader of all Germany to bring further glory to the Third Reich.
Now, at last, he had the chance to punish the world for all it had done to him. Now, at last, he would show everyone that he wasn’t a failure, wasn’t a nonentity. And, through his exploits, he would never let them forget his name—his new name.
His true name.
No, Johann Schmidt had never been one for dreams, but for visions. And the Red Skull had enough for them both—visions of spilt blood and tom flesh, of continents to win and worlds to conqu
er, of fire and smoke and the all-pervading stench of death ...
“A glorious morning, is it not, Dietrich?” the Red Skull asked.
Standing upon the western tower of Wewelsburg Castle, an imposing stronghold that towered above the village of the same name in Germany’s North Rhine Westphalia, he gazed at the peaceful countryside around him. Dawn had broken, and the Alme Valley was awash with color, the edge of the cloudless sky laced with warm pinks and lavenders, the first rays of sunlight tinting the forest with a flame-like glow that brought a faint, appreciative smile to even the Skull’s lipless gash of a mouth.
And the faint wails of the damned that drifted up from the death camp at the foot of the mountain were as sweet to his ears as the cheerful twittering of the songbirds in the trees.
“Indeed, Herr Skull,” his assistant replied. “A most glorious morning.”
According to historical documents, Wewelsburg Castle had originally been constructed during the early twelfth century, eventually falling into a state of disrepair once it had been abandoned by its occupants. It was restored five hundred years later under the direction of Prince Bishop Dietrich von Furstenburg, and became the secondary residence of von Furstenburg and the prince bishops of the nearby town of Pa-derbom from 1603-1609. But it wasn’t until 1934, when it caught the eye of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfiihrer of the Schutzstaffel, or SS—the elite guards assigned to protecting Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis— that the castle truly made its notorious mark on history, as a place of religious zealotry . . . and death. The Skull could have chosen to live anywhere in the world—England, France, even the United States, as distasteful as the notion had been—yet he had decided to settle here, in his native Germany, in what had been the mystical center of Adolf Hitler’s proposed “Thousand-Year Reich.”
A sense of nostalgia, he imagined. Within these walls, the plans for creating an occult Vatican were bom, with Himmler and twelve “apostles” at the center of the neo-pagan religion that was to replace Christianity. It was here that the quest was initiated for mystical artifacts that the Reich could use against the Allied Forces: artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant, said to contain the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandants were carved by the hand of God, and the Holy Grail—the cup from which Jesus Christ had drunk at the Last Supper, and in which His blood had been caught during the Crucifixion. And it was here that Himmler formed his variation on King Arthur’s fabled Camelot, with the SS serving as a new order of Teutonic Knights—a tribute, of sorts, to the German warriors who had fought in Palestine during the twelfth century Crusades in an attempt to reclaim the Holy Land from the Moslems.
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