Sometimes, however, the animal was a source of strength-and he gave in to it now. He let his mind sink into a tar pit and his instincts take over. He didn’t think about what he was doing, he just put all his heart and soul into the savage fight for survival.
He was only half-aware of being woken, of skinsuited mutates bending his arms behind him. He lashed out blindly as if they were the villains from the dream—and if a tiny part of Wolverine’s mind sensed that something was wrong, then it was overwhelmed by his satisfaction as his attackers fell down and didn’t get up again.
His triumph didn’t last long. His limbs became rigid and his spine snapped straight, jerking his head up. Something propelled him forward until he collided with a wall. He was spread-eagled against it, his face pressed into the wet stone, unable to make his arms or legs move—and, temporarily bereft of reason, he couldn’t work out why any of this was happening. He let out a bestial howl, expressing his frustration in the only way left to him. And then, his arms were pulled behind his back again, only this time he couldn’t feel any hands upon them, nothing to push against.
He howled again as his wrists were thrust together and he felt cord biting into them. But, at the same time, his body was wracked by another convulsion. Agony sliced through him as his muscles spasmed and tried to double him up but his paralyzed backbone resisted.
Wolverine’s eyes rolled back into their sockets, a milky whiteness giving way to the dark.
But he didn’t stop fighting. Racing out of the shadows around him were the immortal mutant known as Apocalypse, the armored Silver Samurai, and a hundred other hate-filled faces from his past. He extended his claws, twisted his lips into a snarling, beserker grin and ran to meet them.
Nightcrawler had almost worked his bonds loose when the Priest arrived to collect him. Under his hawkish scrutiny, two mutates refastened the cord around the prisoner’s wrists before untying it from the boiler pipes. The Priest took the trailing edge, and Kurt was forced to bite back his resentment as he was led away like a dog on a lead at the head of a ragged procession. With his hands tied behind him, he had to keep up or be dragged along backwards. He thought about making a break for it-even with the inhibitor helmet on, he still had his natural agility-but he had to see Logan first.
He stooped his head to follow the Priest through the hole into the chapel. The smell of the scented candles hit his nostrils, their smoke blurring his vision. And as he straightened again, his heart skipped at the sight of an unconscious Wolverine splayed across the altar on his back. His teammate’s wrists and ankles had been bound to the legs of the sheet-covered table, and thick straps lay across his shoulders, stomach and hips, leaving his bare chest exposed.
“He put up quite a struggle, your friend,” said the Priest out of the corner of his mouth as he walked slowly up the central aisle, the mutates filing in and finding seats behind him. “He killed one of my flock and injured three more. They have been placed in quarantine, of course, lest Mr. Logan has spread his unholy infection to them.” “And what will you do if he has?” asked Nightcrawler bitterly. “Will you kill them too?”
“The Legacy Virus only takes hold in the infidel. My people, I am confident, will pass this test—but those who fail will be cast out. Nothing is more contagious than sin, Mr. Wagner.”
They had reached the end of the aisle now, and the Priest stooped to lash Nightcrawler’s cord to a front table leg, just below Wolverine’s limp hand. “The best seat in the house,” he murmured with a ghoulish smile.
Kurt glared at him, but the Priest returned his hostile look with equanimity as he took his place behind the altar. “You didn’t tell me that Mr. Logan’s skeleton is laced with metal,” he said in a conversational tone. “It would have saved me a certain amount of inconvenience had I known earlier. It certainly made him much easier to control than I expected.”
“That’s all you’re really interested in, isn’t it?” said Kurt. “Controlling people. You and Magneto are much alike in that regard.” “Thank you,” said the Priest.
“It was not a compliment.”
“I am sure it was not. I know about this group of yours, Mr. Wagner, these X-Men. I know that, in your own way, you even believe that you are furthering the cause of mutantkind.”
“Then why-?”
The Priest’s voice hardened. “Because you do not have the vision to do what must be done—and in opposing those who do, you cause as much harm as the most ignorant flatscan.”
“And you’re doing all this to ‘further the cause of mutantkind,’ are you?” said Kurt hotly. “These people are as enslaved to you and this so-called religion you’ve imposed upon them as they once were to the human government.”
“Think yourself lucky, Mr. Wagner, that you do not share your friend’s fate. In Magneto’s eyes, you are not yet beyond redemption.
He has not infected you. When I take you into His presence, you would do well to fall to your knees and thank Him for His mercy.” “Yes,” murmured Nightcrawler, regarding the Priest through narrowed eyes. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Your triumphant arrival in Hammer Bay tomorrow. Magneto will certainly be interested to know that you’ve killed one X-Man and taken another captive. You’ll come face to face with your God at last. And what will you ask of him, I wonder?”
“I share his knowledge of the power of magnetism, and today I have proved myself worthy to wield it. I will sit at the Savior’s right hand as his trusted lieutenant.”
Kurt saw the zealous fire in his foe’s eyes, and he realized for the first time that the Priest really believed what he was saying. He responded with a sardonic smile, which exposed his fangs. “Magneto does not have lieutenants, mein freund," he said, “only servants.”
The chairs had all been taken now, and the last few mutates were climbing into the room and taking up positions along its sundered back wall. At an abrupt gesture from the Priest, the low buzz of excited conversation ceased, and a deathly, expectant hush fell.
He spread his arms wide, tilted his head back and intoned: “My friends: this is a special day for us. As we gather here to give thanks to our Savior, we have been granted an opportunity to prove ourselves worthy of His love. This mutant—” He glanced down at Wolverine, his thin features twisting in contempt. “This X-Man,” he spat, “has already been marked out as a sinner. He has been made unclean. It is our duty now to dispatch him, to disperse his spirit upon the magnetic force lines that it can be born anew.” He reached into his white robes and pulled out a polished dagger. Its wooden handle had been carved into the shape of Magneto’s winged symbol, and painted in blood red. As the Priest raised it above his head, candlelight glinted off its wicked blade. Nightcrawler tensed. Bound and powerless as he was, he had no chance against the Priest, let alone his followers-but he couldn’t stand back and do nothing.
“Let the touch of metal purify this tainted soul!” bellowed the Priest.
And as he began his downward stroke, Nightcrawler sprang, the cord around his wrists snapping tight and forcing him into a backward somersault as his legs swiped sideways across the altar and his feet caught the Priest in the stomach. A gasp rose from the congregation, and several members jumped up as their spiritual leader fell back, winded, and dropped his weapon. Kurt, meanwhile, landed awkwardly back where he had started, and saw the ceremonial blade on the floor. He tried to grip its handle between his toes, but the cord stretched to its limits and he couldn’t quite reach it.
And then, the dagger was snatched from the floor by a Priest incandescent with fury, still not able to stand quite upright but advancing upon the X-Man with a murderous expression. Nightcrawler twisted out of the way of his first thrust, and managed to trip him. But, as his foe picked himself up again, he found himself paralyzed as he had been before, caught in an unbreakable magnetic grip.
“Kill me,” he said in a strained voice, “and you lose your audience with Magneto.”
The Priest was shaking, struggling to contain his fu
ry—but he appeared to win the battle. He let the hand that held the dagger drop to his side, and he closed his eyes and took deep, calming breaths. Then, without another word, he strode back into position to complete the sacrifice—and as the mutates settled back onto their chairs, sweat beaded Kurt Wagner’s brow and he realized that he couldn’t delay the fateful moment any longer.
He would have to watch Wolverine die as he had watched the human woman die, helpless, literally unable to lift a finger to stop the murder of his best friend.
But at that moment, an explosion resounded through the mutates’ base, and startled most of the congregation out of their seats again. Even the Priest must have been taken by surprise, because Nightcrawler felt control of his own body returning to him. For now, he bided his time, sub-vocalizing a quick prayer of gratitude for the timely intervention.
The Priest recovered quickly. “My friends,” he cried, rounding the altar and brandishing his dagger, “we are invaded!” And the explosion had indeed seemed to come from the base’s main entrance in the centermost cellar of the long row. “The heathens choose this holy time to attack us, thinking to disrupt our prayers-but it is precisely because we have the blessing of Magneto already that they will not defeat us!”
Galvanized by his words, the mutates roared in agreement and began to pour out of the chapel, squeezing through the entrance hole two and three at a time.
The Priest stood and watched them go, offering his encouragement and the blessings of their earthbound deity, but he made no move to join them. For the moment, however, he had his back to his two captives and appeared to have forgotten about them. Night-crawler looked desperately for a way to capitalize upon this temporary respite, but saw nothing.
Until, to his surprise and delight, he heard a familiar snikt sound, like a pair of knives clashing together, and he turned to its source.
Wolverine hadn’t moved. He looked as if he were still unconscious, his skin pale and his breathing shallow. But from the back of his right hand-the hand nearest to Kurt-he had extended a single adamantium claw.
Quickly, Kurt shifted around so that the Priest, if he turned, wouldn't see what he was doing. He pulled his wrists as far apart as he could and felt for the claw behind him, resting the taut cord on its sharp point. And he began to cut himself free.
There were butterflies in Iceman’s stomach as he waited, along with a thirty-strong raiding party, at the door of a mid-terraced house in a narrow street. Hendrickson had slipped into the building, and he attached a disc-shaped explosive device to the cellar door before returning to the entrance and counting down the seconds with controlled impatience.
The explosion deadened Iceman’s ears: he hadn’t expected it to be so fierce. Clearly, Hendrickson had wanted to make a statement. He had blown the door from its hinges, well and truly announcing the humans’ arrival. And, even before the smoke began to clear, he was plunging forward and shouting to the others to follow him.
They clattered in single file down a flight of wooden steps, some of the keener and more athletic among them vaulting the banister rail to reach the floor faster. There were no mutates in the cellar, but-as Hendrickson had conjectured in his briefing-the walls to each side had been knocked through into other basement rooms. The humans split into two groups, taking up positions around each of the rough-hewn doorways. Bobby went to the left, and strained to see into the shadows cast by the dingy light of bare bulbs. Even as his eyes were adjusting, as he became convinced that there was nobody in the next cellar either, he heard footsteps behind him, and Hendrickson’s voice: “Here they come!”
And the magistrates’ rifles began to bark. “Like shooting fish in a barrel,” somebody commented.
Hendrickson had been right again. The mutates must have been gathered in a room somewhere to the right of the main entrance. As they rushed to investigate the explosion, they were easy prey for the humans, who were already in position, well covered and waiting.
They couldn’t all crowd around the hole at once, but their onslaught was nevertheless relentless: as one person emptied his magazine, he rolled out of the way and let somebody else take his place while he reloaded. Most of Bobby’s group crossed the cellar to join their colleagues, but he stayed put. He didn’t want to shoot anybody. A lump formed in his throat as he listened to cries and screams that he couldn’t do anything about. He began to wonder what he was doing here, and the only way he could answer that question was to fix an image of Debs’s face in his mind.
The mutates had the measure of the situation now, at the expense of several lives. They had found their own defensive position, behind the next wall along, and they returned the humans’ fire across the intervening cellar. Bobby jumped as a blast of red bio-energy ricocheted from the brickwork beside him. But, at a nod from Hendrickson, three humans hurled teargas grenades, and smoked their foes back out into their sights. Bobby was grateful for his mask as some of the gas drifted back toward him, tinting the air green.
Suddenly, Hendrickson was by his side: even with his mask in place, his heavyset form, the stripes of rank on his uniform and his gruff voice were unmistakable. “Nobody this side?”
“No sign of activity, sir,” reported a woman next to Bobby.
“Four of you, get down there. Make sure the place is cleaned out from here to the far wall. I don’t want any of those freaks sneaking up behind us.”
Bobby volunteered for that duty, because it got him away from the front line and allowed him to explore half the base. Perhaps he would find Debs. Along with three of the humans, he advanced cautiously through the next cellar and the next, probing each corner but finding nothing. His colleagues were rather more enthusiastic about the search, overturning furniture and breaking the legs off tables and chairs with their rifle butts. They dashed cups and plates to the floor, beat the stuffing out of mattresses and tore any clothes they found.
In the third cellar, behind a row of wine shelves, they found four beds. Bobby’s stomach tightened as he saw that the furthest two were occupied. Two bodies were covered from head to foot with white sheets, which-compared to those found elsewhere in the base-were clean and fresh. He approached the first one on his tiptoes, heart pounding in his ears. Nudging the sheet aside with the barrel of his rifle, he revealed a mutate corpse. It was a middle-aged man with ridges across his forehead, and Bobby felt bile rising in his throat as he saw that he had been crudely eviscerated as if by the claws of a wild animal.
“We’re wasting our time,” said a woman behind him, her sudden voice making him start. “It’s a mutate morgue. We should get out of here before we catch their filthy disease.”
“This man didn’t die from the Legacy Virus,” snapped Bobby. “It looks more like he was killed by one of his own.” Or one of our own, he thought. But how was that possible?
“Who cares? So long as the freak’s dead!”
Bobby took a deep breath and bit his tongue as the woman marched away. A third member of the quartet followed her, but a young man-about Bobby’s age, as far as he could judge through the combat uniform—hesitated. Bobby threw him a grateful nod, glad to have his back covered as he approached the final bed. He had to see who lay beneath its sheet. He had to see if it was Debs.
But even as his fingers brushed against it, the sheet was flung back, and Bobby let out a startled cry as a short woman with black feathers all over her body sprang out from beneath it. She hit his chest with both hands, hurling him into the wall, and he tried to bring up his rifle, not intending to fire but hoping that the threat would be enough. But something knocked the weapon from his hands and sent it skittering across the floor-and an instant later, he felt the blow of an invisible fist to his head.
He looked for his remaining colleague, but he too had come under attack. A wiiy mutate in an orange skinsuit had been clinging to the ceiling above him, half-concealed by a support beam. Bobby was just in time to see him land on the young man’s shoulders, wrapping his supple legs around his chest and his arms aro
und his throat, and clinging tight.
And then, his first opponent came at him again, screeching like a bird of prey, her talons slashing across his chest and making him thankful for his body armor. Reflexively, he covered his face with his hands and tried to fight his way through her. She gave ground with surprising ease, and Bobby saw for the first time that she was bandaged around her stomach and that a spreading stain was darkening the white dressing. These people must have been patients here. They had hidden when they had heard his group approaching. He felt a pang of guilt: by exposing them, he had forced them into a fight that they hadn’t wanted.
Hacking at her foe again, the bird-woman cut through to his skin. Out of the corner of his eye, Bobby saw his own rifle being raised as if by telekinesis and turned upon him. There was no time for regrets; nor could he disguise his true nature any longer. If he didn’t fight back with everything he had, these people would kill him.
He formed a hard shell of ice around his magistrate costume, just in time to protect himself from another swipe of a talon. He bombarded both his foes with a fine hail of snowflakes, momentarily blinding the bird-woman and revealing the feminine outline of his invisible assailant so that, even as her first shot went awry, he was able to locate her and knock her down. He whirled around, intending to deal with the flexible mutate next-but even as he did so, his young colleague slumped to the ground, his neck broken.
And at that moment, the other two humans rounded the end shelf, and skidded to an astonished halt as they took in the tableau before them.
“It’s Drake!” the woman screamed. “He was a stinking genejoke all along!”
And they brought up their rifles and fired indiscriminately into the infirmary. Iceman threw himself to the floor between two beds as the invisible mutate was hit by a bullet that hadn’t been meant for her and flopped beside him, losing her transparency in death. The bird-woman screeched in fury, shrugging off a shot to the shoulder as she flew at her attackers, talons outstretched. And the flexible mutate avoided the bullets altogether, taking a prodigious leap onto the far wall and bouncing off it to hit the human woman from behind.
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 68
