The Legacy Quest Trilogy

by Unknown Author

  “As if you cared,” muttered Moira.

  “I would have had an associate of mine, Trevor Fitzroy, collect you by opening a subspace portal directly from here to your island. However, I’m afraid he would have left an energy signature that might have been identified. And a supersonic aircraft would have attracted the wrong kind of attention. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Oh, I understand. You don’t want the X-Men jumping all over whatever sordid little scheme you've got going here.”

  Shaw tilted his head to one side, as if musing on that thought. “1 was also concerned," he said, “that Fitzroy might get a little... shall we say, over-eager.” His eyes glistened. “I’d hate him to suck your life force dry before I’ve finished with you.”

  Moira spat at him, and was gratified to see that, although the saliva hit him softly, it still hit him. The slightest shadow crossed his face, and he produced a silk handkerchief from inside his jacket and dabbed at his cheek. Then he clasped his hands behind his back, turned and crossed the room in a few strides. This simple act irritated Moira. He was showing his prisoner that he wasn’t afraid to present his back to her; that he knew she couldn’t harm him. The worst thing was, he was right. Her eyes flicked towards the door, which had closed by itself. He had left her a clear path to freedom.

  “In case you are wondering,” said Shaw without turning, “there are of course three highly-trained agents between you and my helicopter, and a fourth in the pilot’s seat.”

  “Still paying those costumed goons to do your dirty work?”

  “I still hold the title of Black King.” He was facing her again, and Moira tried not to think about what an imposing figure he cut. It was something about his firm gaze and the way he stood, so sure of him-self-as if nothing could touch him, let alone hurt him. He was the Black King: nominally the head of only one Inner Circle, but in reality probably the most powerful and respected of any of the Hellfire Club’s Lords Cardinal. He wore a maroon velvet smoking jacket and waistcoat, a gray silk cravat, black breeches and thigh-length black boots. His long sideburns added to the image of a Victorian gentleman, although the facade was as misleading as that of the Hellfire Club itself.

  His smile remained as fixed as ever, and Moira longed to wipe it from his self-satisfied face. “Oh?” she sneered. “Last I heard, your own son had deposed you and left you for dead.”

  “There were some ... difficulties at our New York branch,” said Shaw tartly, his smile turning into a half-snarl. She felt a thrill of achievement at having cracked his veneer, although it was only a small triumph. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second, as if ridding himself of unwanted memories. When he looked at Moira again, his habitual smirk had returned. “However, I still control Hong Kong’s Inner Circle.”

  “And that’s where we are, is it? Hong Kong?”

  “My private airfield.” Shaw cast a glance at the untidy desk. “I acquired it rather suddenly from the previous owners,” he said, by way of an explanation for the mess.

  “So, are you going to tell me why you’ve dragged me halfway across the world?”

  “With pleasure, dear lady.” Shaw motioned Moira towards the remaining wooden chair. “Perhaps you’d like to take a seat? You appear to have left one intact.”

  “Fd rather stand,” said Moira stiffly.

  Shaw nodded. “As you wish.” He pulled up the chair and sat down, crossing his legs and resting his hands upon his knee. “Now, as you are no doubt aware, we two have been pursuing a similar goal of late.” '

  “If you mean we’ve both been trying to cure the Legacy Virus “Precisely.”

  “Except that I doubt your motives are quite the same as mine.” “Please, Doctor MacTaggert,” said Shaw with mock dismay, “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re trying to imply!”

  “Is that what all this is about? You want to get your hands on my research?”

  “Not at all. I had my operatives bring your notes because I thought they might be useful to you. As I’m sure you have guessed by now, Doctor MacTaggert, what I desire is your aid.”

  “You want me to join you?” Moira shook her head firmly. “You’ve asked before, Shaw.”

  “And you declined, as I recall. But how many people have died since then?”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Isn’t it? I’m willing to admit that my research team hasn’t had much success.. Can you say any different? The American media has made much of this latest human death, haven’t they? Your partner attended the funeral himself, I believe.” Moira shouldn’t have been surprised that Shaw knew so much. She was taken aback, however, when he leaned forward in his chair and fixed her with a compelling, earnest stare. “How many more funerals, Moira?”

  She fought down a lump in her throat, and didn’t answer.

  Shaw leaned back again and steepled his fingers, thumbs resting on his chest. “I’m suggesting to you, once again, that we pool our resources. Come with me. Take a look at my research facility. I think you’ll be surprised.”

  Moira’s interest was piqued, despite herself. “How so?”

  “Let’s just say I have recently come into possession of some very interesting technology. I doubt if you can even imagine some of the new avenues that my scientists have begun to explore. In fact, Doctor MacTaggert, I will state here and now that, with the right team on this project, I fully believe that a cure can be found, in weeks rather than months.”

  “And you want me to be a part of this team?”

  “I want you to lead it. You’re the only person with the knowledge and the skills for the job. Naturally, you will have the best equipment at your disposal, not to mention the best people in the field. You’ve worked with Doctor Rory Campbell before, I think?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve worked with Rory.”

  “A very bright young man,” said Shaw.

  “Who just happens to know a thing or two about Muir Island’s security systems,” said Moira. Her tone was cold. Rory Campbell had been a friend. He had even lived with her on Muir Island for a time, acting as her assistant. After he had defected, she had changed her security codes, of course. She ought to have had the whole system replaced, but she had trusted him, at least that far. Campbell was not a bad man, or so she had thought: when he had left to work for the Hellfire Club, it had been for all the right reasons. He had believed he could make more progress against the Legacy Virus with the organization’s resources behind him. Moira was still on speaking terms with him, just about-but she would have been lying if she had claimed not to resent his betrayal.

  And now she had allowed him to betray her all over again. Shaw’s smile broadened. “I gave him my assurance that you wouldn’t be harmed.”

  “Even if I refuse your kind offer?” Moira placed a sarcastic emphasis upon the word ‘kind.’

  Shaw pursed his lips as if giving the matter serious thought. “Harmed, no—although it may prove impossible to set you free with the knowledge you are about to acquire.”

  “That sounds like a threat, Shaw, however you dress it up.”

  He smiled again. “But then, why would you turn me down? I’m offering you a great opportunity: the best chance we have ever had to be rid of this virus. You could save millions of lives, your own included.”

  “And you’re doing this solely out of compassion, of course.”

  “I’m a mutant, as are many of my associates. Is that not reason

  enough?”

  “Where you’re concerned, Shaw, no. I take it that, if this team of yours does find a cure, it’ll be you who has control over how and when it’s used; who gets to live and who doesn’t?"

  “Is it such a high price to pay?”

  “You’re damned right it is! When I beat this virus, it will be on my own terms—and you’re the last person in the world whose hands I’d let control of a cure fall into.”

  Shaw laughed. “I can almost hear Xavier talking through you.”

  “I don’t need Charles to tell
me the difference between right and wrong!”

  “No? You appear to have sacrificed the best part of your life to his cause.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand."

  “I understand," said Shaw, “that compromises must be made sometimes. You can’t always live a dream.”

  “You can, if it’s a dream worth living for.”

  “And dying for?”

  “Yes!”

  “I admire your principles, but I fear they are misguided.” Shaw stood up slowly, straightened his jacket and brushed lint from his breeches. “We all share the same dream, in the end. We want to see a world in which homo superior are accepted as the natural evolution of homo sapiens. Xavier believes this can be brought about by reasoning with the primitives, by educating them. And yet, in the years since he formed his precious X-Men, anti-mutant sentiment has only grown. His methods have failed.”

  “And I suppose you’d rather fight it out,” said Moira, sourly. “Survival of the fittest.”

  Shaw frowned. “Please, do not confuse me with the likes of Magneto and the so-called Brotherhood of Mutants. They believe they can take power by force, that they can make humanity accept them. But they’ll start a war that can only end when the last human being is dead. No, Doctor MacTaggert, we live in a capitalist world. The only way to achieve true power, to affect real change, is to work within that system. Through the Hellfire Club, I have helped mutants to climb to society’s highest echelons; to build economic and political influence.”

  “Fine words, Shaw,” said Moira, “but I know your methods. Your battle plan might be sneakier than Magneto’s, but you’re no less ready to sacrifice anyone and everyone for the sake of your own twisted goals.”

  Shaw’s face hardened, almost imperceptibly. “I’m sorry you feel that way. But I still believe that, once you have seen what I have to show you, you might change your mind. I sincerely hope, for your sake, that you do.”

  He swept past her, opened the door and strode outside. Immediately, a Hellfire Club agent stepped into the shed, gun at the ready. Moira marched after Shaw without waiting to be told. This must have been what he wanted, for the agent fell into step behind her.

  “For my sake?” she shouted at Sebastian Shaw’s back.

  He was heading across the tarmac towards the large, black helicopter that must have brought him here. Its blue-ana-red-uniformed pilot saw him coming, and started the engine. The rotors created a blast of air, which struck Moira in the face and blew her hair into disarray.

  Shaw spoke softly, but she just made out his words above the din.

  “For everybody’s sake!” he said.

  THE X-MEN’S Blackbird had raced the night back to the United States. The village of Salem Center was wrapped in darkness now, _but a light still burned at the top of Graymalkin Lane. In the conference room of the Xavier Institute, another meeting was taking place. A counsel of war.

  "I think we’re all agreed,” said Cyclops, “all roads lead to the Hellfire Club. Clyde Scott was approached by its representatives shortly before his abduction, and Moira was delivered to Hellfire Club mercenaries.” He cast an eye over his teammates: Phoenix, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Iceman, the Beast and Rogue. Seven of the most powerful mutants in the world; eight, including himself. But they still had their work cut out for them.

  “About time we shut those suckers down once and for all,” muttered Wolverine, leaning back in his chair and resting his heels on the table.

  “It’s never that easy though, is it, sugar?” said Rogue.

  “The Hellfire Club have thrived for centuries,” warned Storm.

  “Our next step,” said Cyclops, “is to find out exactly which branch we’re dealing with. Experience suggests that the various Inner Circles usually work independently of each other, and that the most likely candidates for a brazen move like this are New York, Hong Kong and London.”

  “As far as I know,” Nightcrawler spoke up, “London’s Inner Circle hasn’t re-formed since the Black Air fiasco. I’ve spoken to Brian Braddock-Captain Britain-and asked him to snoop around a bit, but I think we can count them out for now.”

  “Which leaves us with Hong Kong and New York.”

  “Sebastian Shaw is still the Black King of the Hong Kong Inner Circle,” said Phoenix, “and, the last we heard, Selene had taken control in New York.”

  “Didn’t they used to be buddies?” asked Iceman.

  “Selene was Shaw’s Black Queen until recently,” said Cyclops, “but I’d say they were uneasy allies at best. It’s a good point, though. We can’t just assume that Selene has defected. She might be working with Shaw to control both branches.”

  “Then I suggest we investigate both simultaneously,” said Storm. “I agree. That way, if they are still affdiated, they won’t get the chance to send warnings to each other.” Cyclops looked around the table, mentally dividing the eight X-Men into two teams of four. When he reached his wife, he hesitated. Then, looking away from her, he said: “Ororo, take the Blackbird and take Logan, Kurt and Rogue to the Hong Kong branch. Hank, Bobby, Jean and I will see what Selene’s up to.”

  He felt Jean’s smile in his mind, the telepathic equivalent of a loving squeeze of the hand. She was grateful to him for not sending her to China. They both knew why. No doubt some of the others did too. Phoenix would do her duty as an X-Man, of course—but if she could avoid meeting Sebastian Shaw in the process, she would be all the happier. More than that, there was one particular member of Shaw’s Inner Circle whom neither she nor Scott ever wanted to encounter again.

  “Hong Kong’s twelve hours behind us,” said Wolverine. “We can catch a few hour’s shut-eye and still leave early enough on Saturday morning to be there by Friday midnight.”

  "At which time,” said Nightcrawler, “there’ll be a party in full swing, if I know the Hellfire Club. That should make it easier to infd-trate their headquarters.”

  “Agreed,” said Cyclops, with a nod. “We’ll wait until you’re in position before we approach the New York branch.”

  “Good idea,” said Iceman, with feeling. “If we have to confront that witch Selene in her lair, then I’ll be a lot happier doing it in the full light of day.”

  To the mutant sorceress Selene, no sound was sweeter than that of human souls in torment. The screams that echoed around her catacombs, night and day, were her music, and she savored their harmonies now. As she walked, minor demons skittered out of her path and took refuge in the shadows. Fires burnt in wall-mounted braziers, and bathed the cracked stone walls in flickering light. The air was thick with the stench of brimstone. To most people, the heat would have been oppressive.

  Selene had come from entertaining her more traditional guests upstairs. She still wore her low-cut, figure-hugging black evening dress. But it was the guests down here, in her true domain, who really interested her. Down in the lower levels of the building, nightmare chambers brought people face to face with their personal fears, in illusory form. But further below, in these stygian depths, mind scans and Virtual Reality devices were not needed. Here, Selene had constructed a nightmare that spoke to the shared terrors of all human beings-and it was real.

  Externally, the grand old Hellfire Club building on Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, had hardly changed in three centuries. Like the organization that had owned it all that time, it retained its respectable facade. Inside, however, the new Black Queen had made changes.

  The Hellfire Club lived up to its name now.

  Attracted by the anguished timbre of one particular wail, Selene opened a cell door and peered inside. A man hung from his ankles, chains wrapped around his black tuxedo, over a pit of fire. Sweat beaded his balding pate. His jacket was tom where Selene’s demons had attacked it with claws and whips. He looked at Selene with frightened but longing eyes, and tried to raise his head, but groaned with the effort.

  Selene pursed her full, red lips into a smile, flicked her long, silken, jet black hair back over her shoulders and strode in
to the rough-hewn room. “Hush now, Mr. Pemberton,” she cooed. “You wouldn’t want to attract the further attention of my good friend Blackheart, now would you?” To underscore her point, she gestured with a hand and made the flames leap higher. They licked around Pemberton’s forehead and threatened to bum what remained of his hair. He grimaced and breathed in deeply, but didn’t make another sound. He was terrified of Selene’s ally, the son of Mephisto himself. Almost as terrified as he was of Selene.

  She nuzzled his chin with her long fingers, and wiped away a stream of blood, which oozed sluggishly down from beneath his collar. “Help me,” he pleaded, in a dry, throaty voice. “I’ve had... enough...”

  “Oh, dear,” said Selene, with mock pity. “I think you’re forgetting the terms of our agreement, Mr. Pemberton. We decide when you have had enough, not you.” Her expression hardened, and she snatched her hand away and clicked her fingers twice.

  In obedient response, a stooped demon appeared in the doorway.

  It was clad in the uniform of a Hellfire Club agent, and indeed it had been human once, before Selene had ripped its soul out of its body. It wore no mask. Its face-with its flaking parchment skin and blank, staring eyes-was exposed. At a cursory nod from its mistress, the demon’s toothless mouth cracked into a malevolent grin. It scampered over to the fire and produced an iron poker, which it lay across the open pit to warm the metal. Mr. Pemberton whimpered, and tears trickled down from his eyes to evaporate in the heat of the flames.

  To Selene’s displeasure, her mystical senses chose that moment to alert her of something.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Pemberton,” she apologized, “but it seems I have more pressing business. My ears are burning, and I expect you know how uncomfortable that can feel.” She smiled at her own little joke, and put a hand to her mouth, smearing his blood across her lips. “My servant will take care of you. I can promise you his undivided attention.”

  As she left the cell, Selene’s expression darkened, and furrows appeared in the pale skin of her forehead. She muttered a short mantra in an ancient language, and activated a pre-prepared spell. She reached out her right hand, palm upwards, and her scrying device—what sideshow mystics would refer to as a crystal ball—materialized upon it.