“I expect you will see all the-” Hank began, but the rest of his words were lost to a gasp of pain as Selene’s eyes flashed and something twisted inside his head.
“I may let Blackheart have some fun with you too, before I kill you. I wonder what form your dream would take? Perhaps you could learn what it would feel like to have your bestial side take over, your intellect repressed.” Hank could feel her cold eyes in his mind as she sought out his greatest fear.
“Or I could become something even more unspeakable, like you,” he snarled.
“Enough jollity I” Selene snatched the Beast’s left hand, and once again he felt his blood being pricked from his veins by one of the tendrils that held him. She turned away from him so he couldn’t see her reaction as she licked the viscous fluid from her fingers.
When she turned back, however, there was no disguising her delight.
“It appears I have underestimated you, my friend,” she said. “You will be pleased to hear that your disease has gone into remission-which means that your life’s work is complete at last. The super-cell that will cure the Legacy Virus is present in your bloodstream.”
Hank had dreamt of this moment for a long time, but he had never pictured it quite like this. He ought to have felt relieved, triumphant even. Instead, he just felt sick.
“Sadly for you,” said Selene, “it is of little use to me in there.”
“Listen to me, Ororo! It is important that you listen to me.”
Sebastian’s tone was urgent. He had taken Ororo’s arms in a grip like steel, and he was shaking her, his teeth clenched in grim determination. It was the last thing she had expected, and she tried to pull away from him, “You’re scaring me, Sebastian. Is something wrong?”
“Everything about this place is wrong.”
“I don’t understand.”
“None of this is real, Ororo. Remember the Hellfire Club. Remember the Beast and Selene and the Legacy Virus. Remember Blackheart!”
“I... I remember. But that was all such a long time ago. Sebastian ...”
“Then how did you escape from him?”
The White Queen stared at her White King blankly. She remembered asking herself the same question a few hours ago. She had dismissed it then as unimportant. But Sebastian Shaw had a talent for finding her weak points. He had always known what she was thinking. He had always been able to turn her life upside-down with words that had to be-but couldn’t possibly be-true.
“You didn’t escape from Blackheart, Ororo,” he persisted. “You’re still there, in that cavern beneath the Hellfire Club building. The X-Men are still there. I’m still there. The last few years have been an illusion, played out in a few short minutes. Listen to me!”
He let go of her, and Ororo suddenly realized that she was exposed. She drew the bedclothes up around her shoulders. She was looking at Shaw in a different light now, all the fears and uncertainties of the past returning to haunt her. “I... I don’t know if I can trust you ..she stammered as two worlds collided inside her head.
He stood and straightened his white jacket, appearing calmer now that he had begun to get through to her. “If I intended to deceive you, Ororo,” he said, “I would have played my part in this scenario as Blackheart planned. It is still my fond hope that you will accept my offer to become my White Queen in reality—but this is not how I wish to achieve that goal.”
Ororo felt as if she had been distracted from a pressing problem for a few minutes only for it to return to her with crushing force. She remembered Shaw’s offer to her, and she knew now that she had not given him an answer. That was why she had been unable to shake off her nagging doubts, why she had needed somebody to tell her that everything was all right.
She didn’t belong here. She hadn’t chosen this life. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
She blinked, and suddenly she was back in the cavern, back in her costume, and the Hellfire Club and the White King and Storm Investments were only parts of a fading dream. The rest of the X-
Men stood around her, frozen like waxwork figures in battle-ready positions. Of their demon foe, there was no sign.
“Their souls are imprisoned as were ours, on a plane beyond this one.”
Storm jumped as Shaw broke the silence. She hadn’t realized that he had returned with her. She felt a sudden rush of embarrassment. She had invited him into her bed. She hadn’t been in her right mind then, but the scenario that Blackheart had created for her had not been conjured from nothing, it had been based on her own hopes and fears. The demon had taken her most private dreams and shown them to the very last person who should ever have seen them. She couldn't even look Shaw in the face any more. She felt violated.
“I can see that,” she said irritably. She formed a cloud beneath the high roof of the cavern and brought down a shower of rain, blasting the cold water into her teammates’ faces with a horizontal wind. It was the quickest way to bring them back to their senses-but the concentrated, violent expression of her powers was also calculated to relieve her frustration.
“I had no choice!” moaned Iceman under his breath as he came round. Wolverine dropped to his haunches and popped his claws as if expecting trouble, relaxing only a little when he saw where he was. Nightcrawler looked heavenward and offered a thankful prayer.
Storm didn’t have to explain what had happened. Cyclops’s only question as he took in his surroundings anew was: “What happened to Blackheart?”
“He was not here when I awoke,” she said.
“Looks like Old Stone-Face has popped out and left us to it,” said Rogue. “He probably didn’t expect us to break out of his little psychodramas so quickly.”
“I don’t like it,” said Wolverine. “Smells like a trap to me.”
“He wouldn’t be the first big bad villain to underestimate the X-Men, sugar.”
“Either way,” said Cyclops, “the Beast’s situation leaves us with no choice. Trap or no trap, we have to keep going until we reach Selene’s throne room.”
He set off at a run, leading the way up the stone steps which, according to Shaw, had once provided access to the lowest level of the Hellfire Club building proper. The door at their head had been destroyed now, of course, and a stone wall stood in its place.
For the X-Men, however, it was hardly an insurmountable problem.
As Cyclops set about the barrier with his optic blasts, he was unaware that he was being observed. Selene’s crystal ball had leapt from its dais in response to a signal that the Beast had neither seen nor heard, shooting across the throne room to slap into the Black Queen’s gloved hand. Captor and captive alike had watched in silence as Shaw had revealed the truth to Storm, whereupon the scene had changed and they had witnessed the X-Men’s awakening.
The Beast’s heart soared. “Reluctant as I am to resort to recriminations,” he said, “I did attempt to impress upon you the likelihood of this contingency.” It was no longer just a matter of expressing “foolish bravado” as Selene had put it; this was one thing he could still do to aid his teammates. The longer he could keep her distracted, angry with him, the less time she would have to spend preparing for their arrival. He even resumed his struggles against the tendrils at his wrists and ankles. He was still woozy from his radiation treatment, but the knowledge that his system was finally winning its own fight against the Legacy Virus was a powerful tonic. He could feel his strength returning.
Selene did not react to his taunt. She dismissed the crystal ball and remained standing with her back to her prisoner for several long seconds. When she did turn to face him again, he knew that something was wrong. Far from looking disappointed or angered by her setback, the Black Queen’s face was alight with glee.
“My dear, dear Doctor McCoy,” she said, “how willfully you contrive to misunderstand. I have not even the heart to punish the insolence of one so naive, so blissfully unaware of the nature of things. Do you truly believe that a handful of pitiful mortals could outwit the offspring of the Prince of
Lies himself?”
“I believe your diabolical partner was met with stronger resistance than he had anticipated. Whoever could have guessed that our friend Shaw has a conscience after all?”
Selene laughed contemptuously. “I know my old Black King as well as anybody,” she claimed, “and he acted precisely as my new King and I expected he would.”
The Beast said nothing. He was pulling so hard against his bonds that the muscles in his arms and legs ached, but it was to no avail.
“Blackheart’s intention was not to corrupt Shaw,” said Selene, “for his soul is, after all, already stained beyond all hope of redemption. Even his decision to tell Storm the truth was motivated by a selfish desire to assert his independence from us. Rather, we have given an enemy cause to doubt his own motives, his very self. We have
weakened his resolve. I have control of the New York branch of the Hellfire Club; Shaw will not rest until he has taken it back from me. Today, my consort has lessened the possibility of such an outcome.” “Why not just kill him if he’s such a threat to you?”
“Oh, I have not finished with Sebastian Shaw. Not yet.”
As she spoke, Selene walked into another alcove. She emerged with a large glass container, which she placed on the stone floor at the Beast’s feet. He estimated that it would hold about a gallon of liquid, and he shuddered as he realized what it had to be for. He tried to keep his captor engaged in conversation, to delay her.
“Nevertheless, he did insert the proverbial spanner into your plans for Storm.”
“On the contrary,” said Selene, “Ororo Munroe now believes that there is a noble side to Sebastian Shaw’s nature. She is closer than ever before to accepting his proposal. Your teammate is strong-willed, my friend: she could never have been brainwashed into joining Shaw’s Inner Circle, at least not for long. How much more satisfying, then, to see her make that decision of her own free will? How sweet the taste of a heroic soul thus compromised?”
Hank was still trying to think of an answer to that when he felt a prickly pain all over the back of his body. The tendrils were extending their needles-or thorns, or whatever they were-into his skin again, but not just into his wrist this time. He gasped, and tried to arch himself away from them. He felt as if he had lain down on a bed of nails. And now he could feel the needles drawing blood, draining his newly restored vitality from him.
Selene pressed her fingers against the wall beside Hank’s shoulder. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but when she pulled her hand away she was holding a length of tendril, which became a loop as she teased it towards her. Then she leaned forward and, in one quick, feral motion, tore the squirming tentacle apart with her teeth. Blood gushed from both ends of the ruptured pipeline, and she gave them each a savage yank, pulling them further out of the wall until they reached down into the glass container. The Beast watched in numb horror as his own blood was pumped sluggishly into the receptacle. It was filling at an alarming rate.
“I must apologize for my unseemly haste,” Selene smirked, her lips and chin red, “but as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, this precious fluid has to be placed in a refrigeration unit as soon as possible. After all, we wouldn’t want your super-cell to conclude its work and extinguish itself before I can isolate and duplicate it. Not after all your hard work.”
“That cure belongs to Mankind, Selene,” insisted the Beast through gritted teeth.
The Black Queen laughed. “You are very much mistaken. The cure belongs to me now-and to ensure that it remains that way, I will of course be draining all the blood from your malformed body.” She nuzzled Hank’s chin with her knuckles, almost affectionately. “Oh, I know that, strictly speaking, I don’t need it all-a small sample ought to be enough for my purposes-but you see, my dear Doctor, I am a hoarder by nature. If I want something, then I’m afraid I have to be the only person who has it-and I have to have it all.”
“You’re psychotic!” spat the Beast.
“I knew you’d understand,” purred Selene.
The stone wall was thick, but it began to crack under the force of Cyclops’s repeated blasts. Storm stood a little way behind her comrades, lost in silent contemplation. She was dwelling upon the dream that Blackheart had created for her, but the precise details of it were proving ever more elusive. She chased them around her memory, but they twisted and flickered and slipped through her mental grasp like shadows.
She did remember that the dream had been full of warmth: not only the physical warmth of a well-heated, sumptuous Hellfire Club apartment, but the more satisfying inner glow of achievement, of knowing that her actions had improved lives. And then there had been a more intimate warmth, the warmth that came from sharing her bed with another person.
In contrast, real life felt cold. Despite the close heat of the catacombs, she felt as if her skin were breaking out in goose pimples. She was worried for her teammates, about what Selene might have planned for them. She feared that the Beast might already be dead. And she dreaded the prospect of a Legacy Virus cure under the sole control of the Black Queen.
For as long as she had been with the X-Men, it had been like this. Professor Xavier dreamt of a better world-but the wOuld-be architects of that dream were forever on the defensive, forced to react to new and deadlier threats. They always seemed to be fighting somebody, but rarely did they gain from it; the best they could hope for was to safeguard what they already had. Sometimes, they couldn’t even do that. Sometimes, a friend fell or the public were given fresh reason to distrust those who weren’t like them. Sometimes, they couldn’t even stop a madman from achieving his goal; a madman like Stiyfe, the mutant from the future who had unleashed the Legacy Virus upon his own past in the first place.
There had to be a better way than this.
Ororo shook herself out of her introspection, sensing Shaw’s eyes upon her. She returned his concerned look with a weak smile. She still felt a little awkward around him, although she could no longer remember why. All she did know was that he had passed up the opportunity to take what he wanted from her. He had done the honorable thing, and saved her again.
And then there was no more time for thinking. Rogue stepped forward to complete the job that Cyclops had begun; she shattered the weakened obstruction with three resounding blows. Storm brought up the rear as the X-Men clambered over the wreckage to find themselves at one end of a long, narrow hallway. The floor was carpeted and the walls were hung with paintings. Ororo saw four closed doors and was alarmed to realize that she knew what lay behind each of them, even though she had never been through them. Thanks to Blackheart, this building felt like a home to her. But it was a home that had been invaded.
At the far end of the hallway, a spiral staircase snaked upwards. Waiting at its foot were eight demon creatures in Hellfire Club uniforms.
Storm summoned and redirected the air currents from the cavern behind her, and a fierce wind whistled past the X-Men. It gained strength as it rushed along the passageway and picked up Wolverine, who was already racing to the attack. He allowed himself to be carried by it and approached his foes like a cannonball, claws outstretched. Some of the demons came forward to meet him, but the wind had acquired the force of a hurricane and it scattered them like tenpins. They tried to pick themselves up, but Wolverine was already in their midst. By the time his teammates had reached him, all but two of the demons were back on the floor, leaking black blood from deep wounds. Cyclops felled the first with an optic blast, while Phoenix picked up the second telekinetically and smashed it into a wall.
The X-Men mounted the staircase almost without missing a footstep. More demons were charging down towards them, and Cyclops’s eye-beam struck out again and again. The few creatures that were able to get past it were dispatched by Wolverine’s claws or Rogue’s fists—and any demon which tried to throw itself at the advancing heroes from one of the higher balconies found its direction suddenly and painfully reversed by Storm or Phoenix.
They attained two more floors in
this fashion, but their foes seemed numberless and, although they weren’t strong, they were extremely persistent. They reached the highest basement level—the one on which Selene’s throne room was located-but once there, they found that they could go no further. A veritable horde of demons had been lying in wait for them, and they attacked from every direction, too many for even the X-Men with their varied powers to repel. Within seconds, they were engulfed.
Leering, yellowed faces pressed in around Storm, and she could no longer see past them to aim a lightning bolt or direct a strong wind. Fortunately, the X-Men had been trained not to rely solely upon their mutant abilities, and Ororo was particularly skilled in hand-to-hand combat. The close quarters even worked partially to her advantage as she could use her attackers as weapons against each other, felling several of them at a time.
At Phoenix’s telepathic prompt, the X-Men fought their way to each other and formed themselves into a circle, their backs together so that they couldn’t be struck from behind. Try as they might, the demons couldn’t get past their ring of defense; they hammered and kicked and scratched and bit at their enemies, but the X-Men remained standing and returned each blow with greater force. More demons fell, cut by adamantium claws, beaten down by telekinesis or blasted with ice darts, and their ranks began to thin out at last. Storm knew it was only a matter of time before the vile creatures were defeated.
Time, unfortunately, was the one thing they didn’t have.
“My demons are no match for the X-Men, of course,” said Selene. “Your friends have proved their capabilities—not to mention their sheer determination—on many occasions.”
“Then ... why... ?” croaked the Beast.
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 44
