He fought back, but the mutates took the Priest’s silence as a taciturn approval of the attack. They piled on top of Kurt, punching and kicking and spitting-and when he tried to teleport out from beneath them, he only returned to his starting point again. He doubted that the Priest was a match for his so-called Savior, but his magnetic powers were certainly formidable. Little wonder, then, that these people held him in such reverence.
And then, somebody’s intrusive fingers found a pouch in his clothing-a pouch that couldn’t be seen but could be felt-and dislodged the image inducer from within. As the device was ripped away from Kurt, the illusion of his blue and red skinsuit blinked out. A collective gasp rose from the mutates as they pulled away from
their victim, the better to see what they had just revealed. With malicious satisfaction, the Priest said: “My suspicions about Mr. Wagner were justified, I see. He is not one of us.”
“I’m not the only person here without a skinsuit,” said Kurt, but his cause was already lost.
“You are the only one who thought to conceal the fact,” replied the Priest smoothly. “And what of your aspect? Is this too a deception? A disguise? Could these grotesquely distorted features be a human attempt to mock us, to hold us to ridicule?”
“I’m a mutant,” said Kurt sullenly. “You know that. You’ve seen what I can do.”
“Ah. A mutant but not a mutate?”
“My abilities evolved naturally. I am not from Genosha.”
“Indeed not,” said the Priest triumphantly, exposing his tombstone teeth. “This costume-” He ran a disparaging eye up and down Nightcrawler’s red tunic, “-betrays your true nature.”
“We still have much in common!” Kurt addressed the crowd imploringly.
“I hardly think so,” said the Priest tartly. “You are an enemy of our Savior, are you not? An X-Man! A mutant terrorist who has pledged to overthrow Magneto’s rule of Genosha.”
“Th-that’s not true,” stammered Kurt, but his denial was met by hoots of scorn and derision. “I mean, I am an X-Man,” he admitted, “but. . .” Nobody was listening any more.
“And he’s brought the rest of his team with him!” shouted the human woman, to Kurt’s surprise. She was standing again, her fists clenched defiantly. “I’ve already met one of them. You can do what you like to us, but it’ll do you no good. The X-Men are going to bring that tinpot little dictator you call a Savior to justice! It’s all over for you, you gene freaks!”
“Enough!” snapped the Priest, and there was silence again in the chapel. “The guilt of this man and this woman is only too evident,” he continued after a suitably dramatic pause. “And there is more. I have been unable to heal our other new recruit, and now the reason why has become clear. He too is an X-Man, undeserving of our Savior’s grace. Indeed, he has already been dealt the just fate of the heathen.” A ripple of fear passed through the Priest’s attentive audience. He raised his voice. “Yes, Mr. Logan has the Legacy Virus—and Mr. Wagner here deliberately kept that fact from us. He brought his cohort here to us the hope that his filthy pestilence would spread. But he reckoned without the strength that our faith gives us, the protection that Magneto extends to the pure of heart and the true of deed.” The
Priest bowed his head and placed his hands flat on the altar before him. “I must meditate now. I must commune with our Savior, through the power of the magnetic fields, and learn what He would have us do with these sinners.”
The Priest closed his eyes, and Kurt realized that this might be his last chance. He couldn’t teleport, but he still had his natural agility and his other abilities. It was a long shot, but perhaps he could snatch the woman, leap to the ceiling and be out of here before any of the mutates could use their own powers against him. But even as he tensed himself, ready for action, he felt the air around him crackling and he was unable to move a muscle. The Priest, far from communing with anybody, was manipulating his magnetic field, paralyzing him.
The Priest’s bald head jerked back up, and his eyes snapped open. The mutates waited breathlessly for his pronouncement. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of Kurt’s neck.
“Our liege is pleased with us,” said the Priest. “Through our diligence, we have confounded his enemies. Kurt Wagner will receive Magneto’s personal attention: he is to be taken to the command center in Hammer Bay on the morrow. His friend has already been judged, and will not be allowed to pollute our clean air any longer. He will be sacrificed.”
“You’d kill a man just because he’s sick!” cried Nightcrawler. “How does that make you any better than the magistrates?”
The Priest ignored him. “The human woman has demonstrated her intolerance. She cannot be redeemed. We will not suffer her to live a moment longer.”
The woman swore at him, but she didn’t move. Kurt realized that she was held fast too. And then, the Priest turned to glare at her, and his blue eyes looked as if they were on fire. The woman’s face turned pale and she bit her lip. She was in pain, but trying not to show it. The mutates backed away from her in awe, and Kurt could sense the charge in the atmosphere, could almost see the forces that were gathering to tear her internal organs apart.
He yelled his throat raw, appealing for reason, for mercy, to no avail. He strained to reach the Priest, just a few feet away from him, but he couldn’t so much as move his hand. He couldn’t even turn away, but he closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer Heavenward as the woman finally let out a piercing, gargling scream, which was abruptly curtailed.
A tear teased its way through Nightcrawler’s eyelashes and welled onto his cheek.
Three strands of barbed wire had been strung across the end of Jasper Street, wrapped around streetlights on each side. Resting against the barricade was a wooden board on which somebody had scrawled “HUMANS KEEP OUT” in white chalk. And bound up in the wire was a bedraggled corpse, its magistrates’ uniform in shreds, a bloody hole in its chest. A warning of a more graphic kind.
The man’s name was—had been—Mark Jameson. His friends had come here, despite the danger, to see that he received a dignified burial. Everybody had agreed that, uncivilized as they were, the mutates would not have provided one. Hendrickson had been reluctant to send a rescue party out so close to his briefing, but feelings had run high and he had had little say in the matter. There were tears now, shudders of revulsion and dark mutterings about vengeance. One woman bowed her head and said a quiet prayer.
Iceman felt out of place, as if he were intruding upon their private grief with his combat suit and his rifle and his secret. He looked away, sickened, as Mark Jameson’s friends began the painstaking process of detaching him from the barbs.
Bobby’s job was to cover them as they went about their task. He lined up alongside another eight stoic sentries in an arc formation, and watched the lengthening shadows. “The genejokes will expect us to retrieve the body,” Hendrickson had warned, “but they’re unlikely to turn up in force. They know we’ll be mob-handed, and they won’t want to risk a major confrontation. They’re cowards at heart.” Even so, Bobby had been warned against the danger of a lone sniper. He wore his gas mask for protection. He wondered what he would do if he saw a mutate. His gun had no ‘stun’ setting. Could he bring himself to use it? He resolved to fire a warning shot first: he could always claim to have aimed for the target and missed. If that didn’t work... then what?
He had no right being here at all. With time running out, he had finally overcome the biggest obstacle between him and his goal: he had found his way out of the humans’ fortified base. He should have been halfway to Hammer Bay by now. He had had more than one chance to slip away on the short journey across the village.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about Debs. She had been good to him, all things considered. He had liked her. He couldn’t leave her to die. He had even tried to persuade Hendrickson to bring the attack on the mutates forward. The X-Men would have gone in now, however much it compromised their plans, because a life was
at stake. Not that he could have said as much, of course. Nor had he been able to refute the cold logic of Hendrickson’s argument. He had considered going after Debs alone, but it would have been suicidal-even if he could have sweet-talked somebody into telling him where the mutates' base was.
“It’s good to see such fire in you,” Hendrickson had said-a little patronizingly, he had thought. “Hold on to that, Drake. You’ll need it against those genejokes tonight!”
That was when Bobby had realized what he must have sounded like: so eager to embark upon a mission which, not so long ago, he had been dreading. A mission alongside armed non-mutant human beings. A mission with the stated intent of killing their genetically gifted cousins. A mission against his own kind.
“All I care about,” he had said just forty minutes ago, “is getting Debs away from those freaks before they hurt her!” In his anger, he had let the insult trip off his tongue. He hadn’t thought about what he was saying, what the words meant. He felt ashamed.
And he didn’t know what he would do next: when he had saved Debs-if he could-but in the process had become caught up in Genosha’s civil war. When he tried to think about it, it felt like a black hole looming over his future, in which he could see no light. He felt helpless and afraid and frustrated at the senselessness of the whole situation.
But, for all his training, he couldn’t think of a single way out of it.
Raul Jarrett was standing alone outside Magneto’s throne room, wondering what he was doing here. He felt light-headed, and a pain was growing in the pit of his stomach—too little food and too much tension over the past two days, he supposed—but he didn’t know what else to do.
Magneto hadn’t said a word to him since Sydney. Perhaps Jarrett had incurred his disfavor somehow. He thought he had performed well enough when he had reported finding nothing in Shaw’s rooms, when he had deceived his leader-but Magneto was the Savior, allpowerful, and Jarrett still couldn’t shake the fear that he could see into his heart and mind.
Perhaps the Savior had seen his doubts. Perhaps he had seen how the revelation of his plans had disconcerted him. Perhaps he was disappointed in his subject.
Magneto, Jarrett told himself, knew what was best for the mutates. It was not his place to question his wisdom. But he remembered how he had suffered with the Legacy Virus, and it seemed cruel to inflict such suffering upon others. Not that some of the humans didn’t deserve it—particularly those ex-magistrates and politicians who had fled Genosha before they could be punished—but many had done nothing wrong. It was likely that they only wanted to live in peace, but Magneto was about to drag them into a war. Raul Jarrett knew how that felt.
He had not expressed his opinion, of course. He had followed the Savior wherever he led-and, when Magneto had strode into his throne room without dismissing the wretched mutate, the door swishing shut behind him, he had thought it best-perhaps safest—to wait. In the absence of further instructions, however, he was beginning to feel tired and foolish.
He was glad to see the friendly face of Jenny Ransome, his former nurse, as she turned into the corridor. She frowned at him as she reached the throne room door, and asked what he was doing here. He explained, falteringly, as best he could, and she thought for a second before drawing him conspiratorially to one side.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Magnus, haven’t you?” she said. It felt odd to hear the Savior referred to in such a familiar way. Jarrett nodded dumbly, and Jenny asked: “Has he said anything to you? Did he tell you what his business was in Sydney?”
“Um ... well, he didn’t say anything to me. ...”
“But you do know?” she asked urgently.
Jarrett felt his blood freeze. Was she trying to trick him, to prove Magneto’s suspicions about him? She was a member of his government, after all; surely she knew what was going on? But his gut instinct said otherwise—which, in some ways, was worse. He had already betrayed his leader for Sebastian Shaw, now he was being asked to do so again.
“I... I don’t . . .” he stammered, glancing reflexively at the closed door.
“Come on Raul,” she said, smiling sweetly. “You wouldn’t be telling just anybody, would you? You know you can trust me.”
“I don’t know if I... the Savior . . .” He longed to tell her, to share his concerns with somebody who could reassure him and make things better. But all he could think of was the four X-Men who had dared to oppose Magneto, trapped in the metal sculpture.
“I know he’s mass-producing the Legacy cure-but there’s something else, isn’t there?”
Tears pricked at the backs of Raul Jarrett’s eyes. “Please don’t make me ...” he whimpered.
And then, the door slid open, and Jarrett jumped and almost cried out as Genosha’s sovereign towered over his chancellor, his expression grim. “Do you have something to say to me, Jennifer?” he asked in a cold voice.
“I...” She hesitated. “Yes, Your Eminence. Yes, I do.”
Magneto nodded curtly and stepped aside to allow her past. As the shadows of the throne room swallowed her, he turned to regard Jarrett with dispassionate eyes as if wondering what he were still doing here. “I have no further need of you, Raul,” he said finally. “You may return home.”
“I... I don’t have a home, my liege.”
“I see,” murmured Magneto. Then, out loud, he said: “See Mr. Moreau. He will arrange accommodation for you. And Mr. Jarrett?” He stiffened, his heart beating fearfully.
“I can rely on you, I hope, to forget anything you may have seen or heard recently?”
“Y-yes, my liege,” stammered Jarrett, nodding enthusiastically as he backed away.
As soon as the throne room door had closed again, he turned and ran. But he didn’t get far.
The muscles in his legs were aching, and he wanted to be sick.
Nightcrawler had been taken to a dusty cellar corner, almost walled in by high shelves. Here, his wrists had been bound behind his back with sturdy cord, and attached to a set of pipes which led to an old boiler. His image inducer had been destroyed and his hidden comm-set taken from him. Then, the Priest had lowered a dome-shaped metal helmet onto his head, and Kurt had winced as he had felt slender needles piercing his scalp.
“An old magistrate device,” the tall man had said in his baritone voice. “I never imagined I would find a need for it, but we live in strange times. It blocks certain nerve signals. It will prevent you from using your special abilities or, indeed, removing the helmet itself.” With a smile, he had added: “After all, I cannot give you my undivided attention all night, can I?”
Kurt had made another plea for his friend’s life, but it had failed as he had known it must. “Do not worry,” the Priest had sneered. “You will have an opportunity to bid farewell to Mr. Logan. You will be our guest at this evening’s service, during which the purification of his soul will take place. In the meantime, Louise will take care of you. She’s a telepath, you know. So, be assured that I will know immediately if my presence here is required.”
Louise, it transpired, was the gray-haired woman with whom Nightcrawler had spoken at breakfast: the one with the baby, although she must have left Magnus with somebody else while she was on guard duty. She took her assignment seriously: she sat straight-backed in a wooden chair at the point where the shelves gave way to the rest of the cellar, and she stared fixedly at him.
When Kurt’s stomach rumbled to remind him that he hadn’t eaten all day, he cast a wan smile in her direction. To his disappointment, she blanked him completely.
He cleared his throat. “That woman probably had a family, you know.”
Louise said nothing.
“Brothers and sisters. Parents. A child, perhaps. Or a husband.”
Still no response.
“I wonder how they’re feeling now. I wonder if they’re waiting for her to come home. Jumping at eveiy sound. Beginning to fear the worst, but still hoping against hope.”
Her silence might ha
ve been a good thing. Her jaw was clamped shut, and she had shifted her gaze to stare past him. As if she couldn’t allow herself to hear him. As if she feared that his words might have an effect.
Kurt went in for the kill. “Is that how you felt when Michael was killed, Louise?”
Louise’s eyes flicked toward him, just for an instant before she forced them away again. She drew in a deep breath.
“That was his name, wasn’t it? Your baby’s father. You must miss him veiy much.” Kurt wondered how much time he had. The evening service was at half past six; it had to be some way past five now.
He had made his point. It was time to try another tack. “I’ve met Magneto, you know,” he said casually. This time, Louise’s eyes remained upon him. She didn’t quite believe him, he could see that. “Many times, in fact. He was an ally once.”
“You are lying!” she snapped.
“Our goals are not so very different. The X-Men, like Magneto, want equality for mutants. It is only over our methods that we disagree. He thinks to achieve peace through the use of deadly force, but history tells us that he can never be successful. There is a fine line, mein liebehen, between a freedom fighter and a terrorist.”
“Magneto knows what is best,” she said automatically. “He is the Savior.”
“He is a man, Louise, that is all. A mutant.”
“No!”
“He may have great powers, but that doesn’t make him a deity.”
“He was put on this Earth to end our suffering! You’re lying! You’re lying!”
“I’m telling you the truth, Louise. Magneto’s origins are the same as yours and mine.”
She shook her head furiously, her hands over her ears. “I will not hear this blasphemy!”
Kurt shouted at her, angered by her unwillingness to listen: “His name is Erik Lensherr. He is a survivor of a Nazi death camp, scarred by his experiences. The X-Men first encountered him when he launched an unprovoked assault on a military base in America. The last time I saw him, he had caused almost irreparable damage to Earth’s electromagnetic field, threatening all life on the planet. You’re a telepath, Louise. Look into my mind, and tell me then that I am lying to you.”
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 65
