Suddenly, Phoenix cried out and clutched her hands to her head. Her legs buckled, and only Shaw’s firm hold on her arm prevented her from falling to her knees. With difficulty, Nightcrawler resisted the impulse to break the chain and rush to her side. “What is it?” asked Shaw brusquely, with no hint of sympathy.
“Selene... detected my presence in her... mind,” Phoenix panted. “She ... expelled me.”
“You’ve lost her?”
Phoenix nodded weakly. Shaw turned to Nightcrawler. “Take us in,” he ordered, “now!”
Nightcrawler screwed his eyes shut, gritted his teeth, held his breath and teleported.
To his relief, it didn’t hurt at all. The five mutants arrived at their destination with an ear-deadening burst of imploding air and a larger than normal billow of smoke. They were midway between the door of
Selene’s throne room and the staircase upon which she had last been detected, only a few seconds ago; however, as the smoke began to thin, Nightcrawler saw to his dismay that there was no sign of the Black Queen.
“She can’t have gone far,” insisted Shaw, a hint of worry entering his tone at last.
“I can’t locate her,” reported Phoenix-and Nightcrawler could see from her expression that the veiy effort of using her psychic abilities was hurting her.
“Keep scanning,” rapped Shaw, “and keep us linked.” Phoenix nodded bravely. “Lightshow and Booster, check the stairs; Nightcrawler, the throne room.”
“Jawohl, mein Herr," acknowledged Nightcrawler with only a touch of resentment. As Shaw hurried past him to search the rest of the floor, he teleported again, solo this time. Remember, Shaw’s voice said inside his head, relayed there by Phoenix, if we can’t find Selene, a sample of the Legacy cure is the next best thing.
He began to search the deserted throne room.
Selene crept along the carpeted corridor to where Phoenix stood, thinking herself alone. In her mind’s eye, she could see the tendrils of psionic force emanating from the X-Man, slipping easily in and out of the ceiling, walls and floor as they searched for their quany. The Black Queen could not have shielded her thoughts by force of mind alone—she had to admit to herself that Phoenix was the more powerful telepath—but she had other means at her disposal. A simple cantrip had rendered her undetectable to all senses, psychic or otherwise.
She waited until she was at her foe’s shoulder before she dropped her cover.
Phoenix detected her presence almost immediately and whirled around, alarmed.
Selene smiled, and hit her with a devastating mindbolt for which she was totally unprepared. She didn’t even have time to scream, let alone issue a warning to her friends. Her brain shut itself off, her eyes rolled back into her head and she crumpled. The Black Queen left her lying on the floor, catatonic, staring into nowhere.
She almost bumped into two of Shaw’s younger idealists as she reached the stairs. The pair cowered from her, terrified; Selene could sense their thoughts as they tried to contact their leader, and their despair as they realized that their link to him had been broken. She brushed past them, considering them unworthy of her attention-but as she headed downstairs, to her surprise, her way was barred by a brick wall. She attempted to remove the obstruction, but frowned as she realized that she couldn’t manipulate its molecules as she could those of most objects.
She turned to look at the young mutant called Lightshow, an eyebrow raised. “It appears I have underestimated you, my friend,” she purred.
At that, both boys turned and ran. But it took no more than a thought on Selene’s part for the carpet itself to trip them. As they fell in a tangle of arms and legs, she bludgeoned her way through Light-show’s pitiful psychic defenses, took control of his mind and compelled him to lower his barrier.
Less than a minute later, she unbolted and opened the heavy wooden door that led into the catacombs. She stood at the head of the collapsed staircase and looked down upon a scene of chaos, savoring the heady concoction of anger, fear and confusion that her consort had unleashed. Blackheart was playing with the emotions of his erstwhile attackers, overwhelming them with feelings of hatred and jealousy and turning them against each other. Even some of the X-Men had succumbed to his influence. Rogue was on her knees weeping, and Selene sensed that she was consumed by self-loathing for the sins of her past. Cyclops and Wolverine were locked in hand-to-hand combat, neither giving any quarter, and it was surely inevitable that one would kill the other. She looked forward to it. She might even leave the victor alive, to nurse his paralyzing guilt in her nightmare chambers.
Storm, on the other hand, was still very much active. She had created her own weather system in the cavern, and thick black clouds obscured its roof altogether. Blackheart was actually beginning to reel beneath a sustained onslaught of wind, rain and lightning. Selene had never seen the wind-rider unleash her elemental fury with such abandon before, and the sight was breathtaking. Focused as Storm was on staying out of her target’s reach, however, she was vulnerable to an attack from behind.
Selene encased her in stone, enjoying the X-Man’s terror as a brittle shell hardened around her. As Storm fell from the sky, the Black Queen gathered up the debris of the staircase and returned it to its old formation.
With the X-Men no longer a threat, Blackheart turned his attention to the rest of Shaw’s ineffectual band of rebels. He downed at least a dozen of them with one sweep of his arm, then he gathered up six more in his hands and crushed the life out of them. They mustered what resistance they could, striking back with feeble punches and sparks of bio-energy, but they never stood a chance.
Selene swept regally down the restored stone staircase, her lips twisting into a smirk at the knowledge that her victory was assured.
Jean Grey’s consciousness was a guttering flame in a black void. She was fighting to keep it lit, to hold back the shadows that threatened to engulf it and snuff it out forever. But then, unexpectedly, the flame was fanned. It grew into a roaring fire and exploded triumphantly into a birdlike shape, which dispelled the darkness.
And Phoenix awoke with a gasp to find the young mutant Booster kneeling beside her.
She flashed him a grateful smile, realizing that he must have amplified her powers and enabled her to fight back against the effects of Selene’s attack. Her head was no longer aching, but she was suddenly, shockingly aware of everything and everybody around her in minute detail. She felt as if she were seeing the world in a new light, and understanding it at last. Without having to search for them, she knew where each of the X-Men were, and what they were going through. She was on a different plane, hovering above them, watching them from a great distance as they went through their flat, three-dimensional lives. She was tingling with power, but the sensation reminded her of something else—a faded dream from, it seemed, a long, long time ago-and the tingle became an icy shudder.
She narrowed the focus of her senses, sifting out relevant information from a tidal wave of thoughts. She entered the minds of Cyclops, Wolverine and Rogue and reasoned with them gently, helping them to regain control over their artificially heightened emotions. She calmed Storm’s fear at being entombed again and allowed her to see herself from the outside, so that she could call down lightning with pinpoint precision and shatter her stone prison.
And then she felt something else: a series of psionic shock waves rippling through the ether. Phoenix didn’t know what was causing them at first-but then, through Wolverine’s eyes, she saw Selene stiffen and wince. On a hunch, she allowed her mind to drift away from Manhattan Island-and there, beyond the Black Queen’s barrier, she touched the thoughts of a vast assemblage of heroes, some familiar to her, some less so. The Avengers, the Defenders, the Fantastic Four, the Thunderbolts ... the list seemed endless.
It could have been a coincidence, of course, that they had chosen this moment to launch an all-out attack upon the barrier-but
Phoenix thought she detected the hand of her missing teammate, Iceman, in this fortuitous turn of event
s.
Selene’s distracted, she told the rest of the X-Men and the remaining rebels simultaneously. We’ll never have a better chance than this to take her down!
“I won’t have the blood you shed on my conscience any more!” Cyclops blasted his opponent square in the chest and sent him flying backwards. Before Wolverine could regain his balance, Scott closed the gap between them and leapt on top of him. The pair rolled over and over on the ground. A set of claws whistled past Cyclops’s ear-a little too close for comfort, but he was sure that his teammate knew what he was doing.
Selene’s buying it, Wolverine reported via the newly reestablished telepathic link. She isn’t even glancing our way; thinks ive’re too busy knocking hell out of each other to worry about her. I’m gonna throw you forwards and right in three... two ... one...
Wolverine’s foot struck Cyclops in the stomach-but, prepared for the blow, he rolled with it, closer, ever closer, to his real target. Impatient as he was to make his move, to bring this to an end before anybody else had to die, he knew that the timing of his attack was crucial. Thankfully, Rogue and Storm were airborne again, drawing Blackheart’s attention and ending his massacre of Shaw’s less able followers for now.
Shaw himself had just been teleported into the cavern by Nightcrawler. He walked calmly towards Selene, his hands held up in front of him in a conciliatory gesture. “I trust we aren’t too early?” he said with a wry smile. “You appear to be coping well enough, in any case.”
Selene looked confused and uncertain of herself. “Stay back, Shaw,” she warned. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”
But Shaw kept coming. “My dear lady, you know you can always count on my loyalty-just as I could always count on yours.”
His eyes hardened and he leapt for her throat, but she saw the attack coming. She waved her arms, and the ground reared up in front of her to form a shield. With a telepathic yell of Now! Cyclops spun around and aimed an optic blast at her back. To his astonishment, it passed straight through her, leaving her unharmed. She turned, just in time to meet a charge from Wolverine. For all her powers, she wasn’t a match for him in close combat—and yet somehow, he ended up on his back on the ground beside her.
“She’s cast some sort of illusion spell,” he cried. “She’s about six inches to the right of where you think she is.”
Cyclops adjusted his aim accordingly-but before he could fire again, Selene’s eyes flashed and she took control of the molecules in his mask. She tightened it around his head so that his visor folded in upon itself, its ruby lens cracking beneath the strain, and his eyes were sealed shut. Blinded and helpless, he tore desperately at the constricting cloth.
He could still sense the others through the telepathic link. He knew that Nightcrawler had joined the assault on Blackheart, but he feared that even three X-Men couldn’t hold out against the demon for much longer. He was proved right when, to his horror, Kurt teleported too close to his adversary and was seized by a stony hand. Blackheart dashed the X-Man against the wall and let him drop. Cyclops shared the pain of his shattering impact, and his heart sank into his stomach as he felt the light flee from his teammate’s mind.
Rogue was the next to fall, so distraught was she at the fate of her friend that she misjudged a turn and flew into a crushing blow. Only Storm now stood between Blackheart and his beleaguered Black Queen. Wolverine, in the meantime, had reached Selene, but she was manipulating the very adamantium in his claws to bend them back upon themselves. He howled like a wounded animal, and Cyclops felt sick as he realized why. Selene had no power over organic matter; the bones inside the metal could not bend with it, they could only break.
The door to the Hellfire Club building flew open again, and a horde of demons in blue and red costumes began to pour down the stone steps into the cavern.
You must keep at her, insisted Phoenix from afar. She’s trying to maintain her barrier and fight off my telepathic attacks. She’s stretched too far. She’s weakening!
Jean had included Shaw in the link, and Scott could feel his hatred, his tightly focused rage and the unshakable determination that drove him as he finally laid hands upon the woman who had usurped his throne. “You’ll never betray me again,” he spat. “You’ll never humiliate me. I won’t let you shape my destiny!”
Beneath a barrage of kinetically charged punches that would have shattered concrete, the Black Queen fell at last.
Cyclops hurled aside the tattered remnants of his mask and donned a pair of ruby quartz spectacles from a pouch on his belt. They wouldn’t give him as much control over his eye-beams as his visor did, but at least he could see again through their red-tinted lenses.
The demon agents were halfway down the steps now. He raised his glasses and stunned the first two; as they fell, they also brought down the creatures behind them. He had delayed the arrival of reinforcements by vital seconds.
Lowering his sights, he saw Shaw’s hands closing around Selene’s throat. He saw the madness in the former Black King’s expression and sensed his intention to kill his tormentor. Narrowing his eyes, he stung Shaw’s fingers with a low-powered burst of energy.
“It’s over, Shaw,” he said. “Leave it.”
Selene made no move to rise. Her pale face was bruised and she was sporting a cut lip and a black eye. Shaw glared at Cyclops, but he didn’t renew his attack; whether this was because he recognized the truth of the X-Man’s words or simply because his mutant power wouldn’t protect him from a full-strength optic blast, Scott couldn’t tell.
Blackheart had seen that Selene was down, and he gave an almighty roar. He strode across the cavern, his footfalls shaking the earth and bringing down trickles of dust and pebbles from the roof. Storm tried to blind him by gathering clouds around his head and placing him at the center of a torrential rainstorm, but he pressed on regardless. She assailed him with bolts of lightning, so powerful that they took chips out of his hide; they evidently caused him pain, but Blackheart shrugged them off like insect bites. The surviving rebels could do no more than scramble to get out of his way before they were stepped on.
Cyclops stood over the Black Queen, his back to the approaching leviathan, and fingered the frame of his glasses. “You’ve lost, Selene,” he said sternly. “Call off your demons-all of them-or I’ll finish the job that Shaw started.”
“Give me the word, my Queen,” said Blackheart, suddenly looming over his shoulder, “and I will crush this brazen mortal to dust.” Cyclops swallowed his fear and concentrated on maintaining his grim expression. He didn’t know if he could carry out his threat or not, but he had to make Selene believe it. He had to make her believe that even the son of Mephisto couldn’t act fast enough to prevent him from killing her.
To his relief, Storm, Wolverine and Shaw joined him; between them, the quartet formed a threatening circle around their enemy as she climbed to her feet. Selene pivoted slowly on the spot, looking at each of their faces and perhaps reading the thoughts behind them too. By the time she stood eye to eye with Cyclops, she was obviously convinced. She raised her right hand and clicked her fingers twice, and the creatures behind her turned and shuffled away up the staircase in single file. Blackheart shrank down to human size, although Cyclops remained acutely aware of the demon’s malevolent presence beside him.
Selene smiled. “Congratulations, Mr. Summers,” she said. “You have won the game. Manhattan Island is yours.”
“This wasn’t a game to us, Selene.”
“Nevertheless, my barrier has fallen-and the human champions of this world are even now fighting their way towards us.”
“There’s one more thing,” said Cyclops. “We want the cure to the Legacy Virus.”
Selene shrugged as if it no longer mattered to her. “The spoils of a war well fought,” she said. “Very well. Your wife has plucked its location from my mind anyway. I should have had the foresight to kill both her and the power amplifier when I had them at my mercy.”
“You’ve been responsibl
e for quite enough deaths already,” said Cyclops tersely.
“I have, haven’t I?” said Selene brightly, beaming with pride. “A shame it had to end like this. Still, there will be other games.”
“Not for you there won’t,” growled Wolverine.
Phoenix sent a telepathic warning of what was about to happen, but Cyclops received it too late. He had been watching his defeated foe so closely that he hadn’t anticipated his teammate’s sudden action. He didn’t have time to do anything but curse himself for his momentary lapse as Wolverine pounced and drove a set of claws into Selene’s back.
The Black Queen stiffened as three adamantium tips emerged from her chest in a spray of blood. For a tense, interminable second, nobody moved or made a sound.
Selene’s eyes were wide, her red lips tight and her face even whiter than usual. She looked down at the claws as if the impaling of her heart upon three spikes were no more than an inconvenient surprise for her. But then, her centuries-old body crumbled, losing definition in an instant as it collapsed into a pile of fine ash. A moment later, gravity caught up with her black Hellfire Club costume and it fell too, beating her remains up into a choking gray cloud.
Wolverine was left standing with an arm outstretched, his claws extended and a gleam of malicious satisfaction in his eye. He returned Cyclops’s look of disbelieving horror with a lopsided grin and a cheerful wink.
And Blackheart let out a howl that sounded like the clashing of continents.
In the moment before the demon dispensed bloody retribution, Cyclops heard Wolverine’s telepathic voice in his head: Just wanted to test a theory. If our distracting Selene helped to bring her barrier down, I wondered what other spells might just wear off if we could take her out of the picture altogether.
Blackheart was growing again, and drawing back a huge fist, but time had slipped a groove and eveiything was moving in slow-motion. Cyclops turned his head, the simple movement seeming to take an age, and he saw that eveiything and everybody around him was picked out in negative. And then the images blurred and changed, and he was somewhere else.
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 46
