Ironically, most of the people in the Hellfire Club’s ballroom at present would probably have fled in fear at the sight of Kurt’s own demonic form; either that or attacked him out of blind panic. To remain inconspicuous, he was forced to use an image inducer. This pocket-sized technological marvel cast a holographic field around him, which made him appear human. In fact, thanks to Night-crawler’s tongue-in-cheek humor, it made him look rather like his childhood role model, swashbuckling movie star Errol Flynn.
For the rest of the X-Men, more prosaic disguises were adequate. They loitered inside the perimeter of Central Park, watching the building across the road but looking to the untrained eye like nothing more than a group of friends taking in some fresh air before they went home. They were, of course, ready to shed their outer garments in a second should circumstances call for their “working clothes.” They lost more overcoats and hats that way...
“I can’t detect any trace of Hank inside the building,” said Phoenix.
“That’s hardly surprising though, is it?” said Nightcrawler. Phoenix agreed. “Selene is a powerful telepath herself. She could easily mask his presence.”
“We’ll proceed on the assumption that she does have Hank in there,” decided Cyclops, “until we find proof to the contrary.”
“Then I say we move now,” said Wolverine, “Shaw or no Shaw.” Cyclops shook his head. “Too many people could get caught in the crossfire.”
“If they don’t want to get hurt, they’d better have the sense to get out of our way.”
“They’re innocents, Logan.”
“That’s relative,” contested Wolverine. “No one ever signed up to the Hellfire Club for its charitable works. Anyway, chances are that’s why Selene threw this bash in the first place; to keep us from going in there and nailing her till it’s too late.”
“Wolvie’s got a point there,” said Rogue. “If we wait for this here shindig to wind up, we could be standing here till mid-morning. Hank might not have that long.”
Cyclops nodded. “OK, I accept that-but I’d still like to keep this operation as low-key as possible. I don’t want to go in there with all guns blazing.”
“What else do you suggest?” asked Rogue. “Walking up to Selene’s front door and knocking didn’t do you a whole power of good last time.”
“And nor did trying to slip in the back way,” said Iceman ruefully. Nightcrawler hadn’t been present when four of his teammates had last confronted Selene, but he knew it had not gone well. The Black Queen’s mutant senses and mystical abilities combined to make it near impossible to sneak up on her. And this time, she would be expecting visitors. He wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she was watching them at this very moment.
“We’ve agreed that the Beast is probably being kept on the lower levels,” said Cyclops, “where Blackheart can guard him. If we can get down there without disturbing the party guests and keep any combat confined to the catacombs ...”
“I believe Logan knows the sewers beneath the building,” said Storm. Indeed, Nightcrawler recalled that his teammate had once infiltrated the Hellfire Club’s headquarters from below, back when Sebastian Shaw had been its owner.
“Before Selene’s renovations, yeah,” said Wolverine.
“It might still be the best way to get a group in there,” said Phoenix.
“I can assist you there.”
For the second time that day, Shaw had approached the X-Men without their knowing it. He had even managed to remain downwind of Wolverine. He liked to make an entrance; the circus-bred showman inside Kurt Wagner could identify with that. The Black King of Hong Kong had discarded his usual finery and was dressed for action in a simple green padded boiler suit and heavy black gloves, belt and boots.
“About flaming time,” grumbled Wolverine under his breath.
“It is precisely one o’clock,” Shaw told him with a smirk on his lips and a glint in his eye. “That, I believe, is the time we agreed for this rendezvous.”
“You had a suggestion to make?” prompted Storm, forestalling any further argument.
“As I explained at the Pacific facility,” said Shaw, “I know this building better than anybody, Selene included. I know all the secret passageways that run through it.”
“Can you get us inside undetected?” asked Phoenix.
“Unlikely. But I can make it difficult for Selene to keep track of us once we’re in.”
“Good enough,” said Cyclops. “We split into three teams, then, and converge on the catacombs from three separate points. With luck, Selene won’t be able to intercept us all. Wolverine and Nightcrawler, you take the sewers; Shaw, I need two more routes.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
“If it’s all the same to you, mein Leiter,” said Nightcrawler, “I would like to be counted out of sewer duty this one time.” He had been thinking of something: a plan to lessen one of the X-Men’s immediate worries. He wasn’t sure if he liked it. In fact, a part of him hated it-but a part of him, he knew, would take a cynical kind of enjoyment in its execution.
“What do you have in mind?” asked Cyclops.
Storm found it difficult to concentrate on Nightcrawler’s explanation. Shaw’s presence unnerved her too much. In her mind’s eye, she could see his face again, hovering above hers, a sole point of light in the darkness. She could feel his breath on her cheek and the muscles of his braced arms against her shoulders. She was buried, but it was all right because he was there. He was talking to her, calming her as he kept the rocks from crushing her. Her savior.
When she looked at him now, she saw a very different person to the one who had invited her to dinner the previous day. He looked somehow taller, demanding attention by his mere presence. Whereas once she had thought him smug in an oily sort of way, she now felt that he exuded confidence. She was waiting, almost with baited breath, to see what he would do next-and when he caught her gaze, she felt a tingle down her spine. She averted her eyes from his, not quite quickly enough. Goddess, she thought, don’t let me become attracted to him.
And a part of her wondered: was it to Sebastian Shaw the man whom she felt drawn? Or was it to his power? The power that he had offered to share with her.
Despite the situation-despite the deadly danger to a teammate and friend—Shaw’s offer had remained uppermost in Ororo’s mind. She had thought hard about it during the flight back to New York, trying to visualize herself in Hellfire Club robes, trying to work out what that would mean to her and how it would change her life. It hadn’t helped her at all. She still had no idea what she would say to Shaw when he put his question to her again.
She looked at each of her fellow X-Men in turn. She knew that if she unburdened herself to them and sought their counsel, they would understand. But a part of her resisted such disclosure, ashamed of her secret longings, of the weakness she could never completely deny. And anyway, would talking to them really make her decision easier?
Her closest friend on the team was probably Jean Grey, Phoenix.
In other circumstances, she might have felt able to confide in her. But one thing stopped her: a memory of the X-Men’s first confrontation with the Hellfire Club and with Shaw himself.
The Black King had allied himself with one Jason Wyngarde, who went by code name of Mastermind. Wyngarde was dead now, a victim of the Legacy Virus. He was no loss to the world. Over a period of months, this twisted little man had manipulated Jean’s thoughts, worming his way into her psyche until he had turned her inside-out. He had transformed her, body and soul, into Shaw’s first Black Queen, a creature of pure evil.
Or so it had seemed at the time. The X-Men had learned only later that “Jean Grey” had not been Jean Grey at all, but rather a being—a cosmic entity-that had used her as a template for its newfound physical form. Mastermind had unwittingly unleashed the monster known as the Dark Phoenix, and the universe itself had suffered for his mistake.
The real Jean, of course, hadn’t had to live th
rough it all. Unlike Ororo, she hadn’t had to see her doppelganger standing at Shaw’s side in black leather. Still, she was fully aware of the atrocities committed by the Phoenix force in her name and of the Hellfire Club’s role in instigating those terrible events. She had also recently been forced to fight Madelyne Pryor, another dark reflection of herself who had ended up in Hellfire garb. Ororo did not wish to dredge up any more painful emotions for her. And even were she to do so, she already knew what her friend’s advice to her would be.
Jean would tell her to decline Shaw’s offer. She would point out that the Hellfire Club specialized in the corruption of innocents, as she had good reason to know. Much as she respected Ororo’s strength, she would fear that the danger of such an alliance to her would outweigh the potential benefits. In her heart, she would be afraid of losing a friend.
Cyclops would agree with her, at least at first-but then he would lay the image of his lover as the Black Queen to one side and look at the situation again.
Scott Summers, for all that he believed in a dream, was a pragmatic man. He accepted that, to achieve anything worthwhile, it was often necessary to take risks. He would, of course, refute Shaw’s accusation that his mentor’s goals were unrealistic; however, the suggestion that those goals could best be achieved in a practical way, as if he could create a business plan for world peace, would be enticing to him. If nothing else, Scott would see the advantage of having an X-Man infiltrate one of the Hellfire Club’s most powerful Inner Circles. He would share Jean’s concerns, but he would also accept Ororo’s assurance that she would be careful, that she would not allow herself to be beguiled by its Black King.
Wolverine would react in much the same way, and for the same reasons. It was ironic, thought Ororo, that Logan so often found himself at loggerheads with his team leader. He was the only X-Man who could get under the cool, controlled Cyclops’s skin. Perhaps it was because, deep down, Scott knew that they were more alike than he cared to admit.
Conversely, Wolverine’s best friend on the team was Nightcrawler, which just went to prove the old adage about opposites attracting. A devout Christian, Kurt Wagner saw no gray areas when it came to the battle between good and evil. In his eyes, the ends rarely justified the means. That wasn’t to say he wouldn’t empathize with Ororo’s dilemma-of course he would-but he would almost certainly opine that it was better to take the Hellfire Club down from the outside than to play Shaw’s game.
Iceman would probably agree with him, but Ororo suspected that he would do so more through a youthful naivete, an innocent desire to hold on to a world that had never really existed, than because he shared Kurt’s unshakable faith. Was she being unfair to him?
Two for, three against, then. And in Ororo’s opinion, Rogue was unlikely to even the tally. Tempted as she might be to side with Cyclops and Wolverine, the Southern X-Man would not be able to forget her own upbringing. Her mother, the shape-changing mutant known as Mystique, had led the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and had indoctrinated her daughter into the ethic of that terrorist organization. When Rogue had first encountered the X-Men, she had been fighting against them. It had taken her a long time to grow out of Mystique’s shadow and to realize that she had the right and the responsibility to ask questions, to make her own decisions in life. Ororo, as she would be forced to concede, was an adult; still, she was all too aware of the pressures that a manipulator like Shaw could bring to bear upon somebody. She would almost certainly remain undecided.
Perhaps if the Beast were here, he would have made a difference. Ever thoughtful and level-headed, Hemy McCoy would have cogitated upon the pros and cons of each side of the debate before offering a considered opinion. Until recently, Ororo might have expected him to be cautious, to advise that it was best to keep away from Shaw and all he represented. But then, until recently, she would hardly have expected him to join forces with the Hellfire Club as he had done. The Beast had evidently decided that such an alliance was justified by the needs of the many, the opportunity to achieve a greater good. And in the end, wasn’t this the choice that she too was facing? She had the chance to wield some of Shaw’s power in a better cause, to accomplish far more than she ever could with the renegade X-Men.
She wanted that power. She wanted it so much that her heart ached for it. But that was the problem. Ororo was afraid of her desire, her need. She feared that, were it to be nurtured, it might grow until it consumed her. And she couldn’t help but suspect that, beneath his mask of civility, Sebastian Shaw was hoping for precisely that.
In the end, she realized, it didn’t matter what the other X-Men said to her, what advice they might offer. The decision was hers alone, and they would support her whatever she did. If she chose not to join Shaw, then they would say no more about it; only she would wonder if she had thrown away a chance to make a real difference. And if she did join him, if she became his White Queen as he had asked, they would accept that too. They would trust her.
The only question was, could she trust herself?
“And so, the poor na'ive insects hurl themselves into the web of the spider.”
Selene’s crystal ball settled back onto its dais as its picture was swallowed by milk-white fog. She rose from her throne and glided across the room to the alcove in which the Beast was suspended. Hank glared at her in silence. When first he had been brought here, he had taunted her with insults and promises that the X-Men would defeat her as they had before. He had taken advantage of his fragile condition and the fact that she needed him alive. But the Black Queen had ways of torturing a man’s soul without endangering his body.
She held his chin in a pale hand and ran her long, red fingernails through his blue fur. “Ah, my dear Doctor McCoy,” she purred, “I know what you are thinking. You act as if subdued, but your eyes are ever searching as your mind plans for an opportunity to reverse our situations.” The Beast said nothing, and a shadow crossed Selene’s face. “I warn you, X-Man, that I will be as quick to punish your dumb insolence as I was your open defiance.”
“I merely considered a vocalization of my motives redundant,” said the Beast, “given that you have already discerned them with laudable accuracy.”
Selene smiled at the compliment. She turned her attention from her captive’s chin to his left hand and spoke in a conversational tone. “Your opportunity will not come, of course.”
“On that point, we shall have to remain in dispute.”
Hank’s throat hurt as he spoke, but he had to admit that he was feeling better than he had done for a while. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. It had been over twenty hours since his last dose of alien radiation, and the side-effects were beginning to lessen. The supercell in his body was still mutating, still trying to evolve itself into a match for his affliction, but it could only be hours away from surrendering and being extinguished.
It didn’t help that he was secured to the wood-paneled wall of Selene’s throne room. His wrists and ankles were securely bound; not by ropes, which he might have been able to break in time, but by wiry tendrils which sprouted from the wood itself. The tendrils were slimy to the touch, and every so often they shifted their grips. He didn’t like to ask what they were.
He braced himself now as the tendril around his left wrist extruded something long and sharp from its underside, and punctured his skin. Blood trickled onto Selene’s waiting finger, and she smeared it onto her tongue with relish. She had done this twice before, apparently gauging the state of the Beast’s health by taste alone. No doubt she had concocted a spell to imbue her with just such an ability, for effect.
“Will it be third time lucky, I wonder?” she mused. She rolled her tongue around her mouth and smacked her lips as if sampling a fine wine.
The Beast realized that he was holding his breath, although he didn’t know which outcome he was hoping for. His search for a cure to the Legacy Virus had consumed his life of late. A day ago, he would have sacrificed himself gladly to achieve his aim. It w7as possible that he
might yet do so. But Selene had boasted openly about her plans for such a cure. She had talked of an army of mutants, enslaved to her will because only she would have the power to keep them alive.
He remembered a conversation with Moira MacTaggert just over a week ago, although it seemed a lifetime behind him now. He had insisted that it was better to have a cure exist in the hands of an enemy than to have no cure at all. At the root of his argument, he realized now, had been his belief in the X-Men. He had lost faith in himself to find a cure unaided—he had begun to fear, even, that no cure was possible-but he had imagined that, if only that hurdle could be overcome, if only a cure could be found somehow, then no villain could keep it from his teammates for long. Now he was no longer so sure.
What if the X-Men couldn’t stop Selene this time? She had allied herself with a demon, after all. Hank had caught only a brief glimpse of Blackheart—a vague impression of a dark face and burning eyes looming over him as he had surfaced from a restless doze—but it had been enough to make his skin itch and his fur stand on end. That was what the X-Men had to face if they were to keep Selene from claiming her prize. What if they failed?
He dreaded to think of the future that he might help the Black Queen to create.
He didn’t know how to feel, then, when Selene’s expression darkened. “It is beginning to seem,” she said acidly, “that you are not as able as your reputation suggests.”
“If you had not deprived me of further treatment. ..”
“Then the cure would be in the hands of the X-Men and Shaw by now-and what would I profit from that?”
“You’re a mutant, Selene,” snapped the Beast angrily. “It is in the interests of every one of us to see this disease eradicated!”
Selene’s expression softened again as she pursed her scarlet lips in amusement. “Ah, but you see, my friend, my ambitions extend far beyond mere survival. I care nothing for this cure of yours except as a means to an end, a tool to facilitate my conquest of this miserable world.” She took Hank’s chin in her hand again and grinned, exposing her blood-stained teeth. “Nor, I am sorry to say, will the outcome of your project make any difference to your fate. Succeed or fail, your usefulness to me will soon be at an end.”
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 37
