The Ultimate X-Men

by Unknown Author

  Storm laughed, sweeping her arm in the air and summoning a wind gust that lifted the three women into the cool night air, back toward Cairo.

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  ). Steven York

  Illustration by Ralph Reese

  The hunt. Logan paused at the edge of a snow-covered meadow, his body motionless yet tensed. All his senses were sharp, hyperaware. The golden light of morning filtered through the last remains of the clouds that had deposited the snow late the previous night, traces of tiny footprints left by birds and other small animals, and a well-worn scar of a game trail, where a herd of deer must have recently passed. He sniffed, breathing their lingering musk, the sweetness of spruce and evergreen, and the cool, fresh smell of the snow itself.

  He sniffed again. There. He sorted though the scents: rabbit, field mouse, the overpowering musk of deer, and there, nearly lost in the riot of nature—a hint of herbal shampoo, a floral perfume, and human sweat. Prey.

  He quickened his pace, cold air burning in his lungs, snow crunching softly under his boots, hands out and ready, the corded muscles in his arms—the ones that would pop his razor claws out through the backs of his hands—flexing unconsciously, teasing just short of the release point.

  The hunt. This was when he felt truly alive, when he could shed the tangled life of the man called Logan like an ill-fitted coat and earn his other name: Wolverine.

  The trail followed the deer path, and even his keen senses were able to follow it only in spots, like an invisible dotted line across the snow-covered fields. Then, the dots came closer, stronger, not just perfume and sweat, but the new leather of her shoes, the worn denim of her jeans.

  He climbed the tree quickly, quietly, careful not to disturb the snow-laden branches. The woman was there, crouched in a clearing, throwing out handfuls of seed to

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  hungry birds. She was beautiful, long red hair spilling over the fleece collar of her coat. Though a few flakes of snow had begun falling, none of it seemed to touch her, as though nature itself stood in awe of the woman.

  Wolverine was not immune to her charms. He watched, transfixed, and took a deep breath, softly releasing it, before popping his claws. The sting of the blades piercing his skin brought his instincts back to razor clarity. He judged the distance to the woman, and tensed to leap.

  Just then, the woman smiled without turning, and he felt a familiar touch inside his mind. You really didn’t think you could sneak up on a telepath, did you, Logan ?

  He relaxed and sheathed his claws. “Least you could have done, Jean darlin’, was to let me tag off and say, ‘You’re it.’ Some things, the Danger Room just ain’t no good for practicing. Did you follow that deer trail on purpose? If so, I give you credit for good instincts.”

  Jean turned toward him and laughed softly, her eyes twinkling with inner light. Come down so we can talk.

  An invisible force tingled around Logan, and he felt himself lifted from the tree, to float, softly down next to Jean.

  “I’ll confess, you did surprise me, at least in that I didn’t expect to see you, or anyone, out here. How did you find me?”

  “I got back from Muir Island and the mansion was empty, but I found your note and figured I’d just missed you.”

  “But I just said I was going out for a few7 hours. I didn’t say where, and we’re miles from the mansion.”

  “Charley’s Rolls was missing, so I figured you took it. 1

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  called the cell phone in the car, and back-traced the signal. A little spy trick I picked up from Nick Fury.” He looked down at the birds. Frightened by his presence, they hopped skittishly away from the bounty of seed on the snow. “You come here often?”

  She brushed her hair back around her right ear and gazed off at the horizon. “Sometimes, when the Institute becomes too familiar, and the din of telepathic voices in my head unbearable, I come out here to be alone, to escape, and to think. Our lives—” the words seemed to catch in her throat “—our lives are so full of chaos and horror. There’s so little time to think and reflect. I need this time alone.”

  Logan suddenly felt like an intruder. He still had feelings for Jean, feelings that had led him to her on the chance they could spend some time alone together. Now it seemed that he’d invaded something important and private. “Hey, I didn’t know. I got stuff to do back at the ranch.”

  He started to turn, but she reached out to touch his arm. “No, stay. This is a wild place, as much yours as mine.” She smiled. “I’d be glad to share it with a friend.”

  Logan hesitated. What could he read into that touch? Had there been something in her eyes, something in her voice? Jean was married to Scott now, but he knew their attraction had once been mutual. There was a dark aspect to Jean not unlike his own. Had he only imagined this new spark between them? For all his hypersenses, he couldn’t read minds.

  “Walk with me,” she said.

  They were silent for a while. The hunt was over for now, the hunter’s sensibilities submerged. Now he could see the

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  forest through Jean’s eyes, the white blanketed hills, the snow-draped trees, the soft sound of the wind. It relaxed him, and heightened his awareness of Jean. Her sidelong glances created an uncomfortable tension. “We really are alone out here,” he said.

  She glanced around casually, her eyes focused on infinity, and he knew that she was telepathically scanning their surroundings. “There’s only one person within three miles of us—a hiker.” Her smile flashed and boiled over into a laugh. “It’s just so quiet. I can hear myself think, Logan. I wonder if you can even know what I’m feeling.”

  But he did, or thought he did, the way he felt sometimes when he escaped the cacophony of human civilization for the wild places.

  “I can relax for once,” she went on, “let down my psychic shields and ...”

  Logan wasn’t looking at her the precise instant she screamed, his gaze having drifted to the trail ahead. His reaction was instant and automatic, his claws out and up, flashing in the sun as he spun, seeking the threat. But there was nothing, only Jean on her knees in the snowT, sobbing in horror, and staring at her empty hands.

  “No,” she said, “no.” Abruptly, she seemed to remember herself. “We’re too late!”

  She reached up and clutched his forearm. Whether it was to calm him, for comfort, or to help pull herself back to her feet, he couldn’t be sure. She stood, wobbling for a moment, then she began to run, unsteadily at first, then faster. “This way!”

  Logan followed, more out of concern for her than anything else. They were running toward nothing as far as he

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  could tell, a section of tree line like any other, about a quarter mile distant. They’d covered perhaps a dozen yards when Logan felt the familiar tingling around him, and the snow fell away under his feet. Whatever had happened to Jean, she was recovering. They soared over the tree line and a ridge beyond. He could see the highway curving ahead where he’d left his Jeep.

  They dropped down near a junction between two hiking paths, both well marked with fresh prints and the tracks of cross-country skis. But Logan’s attention w'as drawn immediately to a dark heap just visible in the shadow of a trail marker, half under the low limbs of an evergreen. It looked like nothing, perhaps a pile of rags, but it was the smell. He signaled Jean to stay back as he crouched by the body. It was a young woman in her twenties, small build, red hair only a shade or two darker than Jean’s. Someone, something, had gutted her like a fish. She’d been dead only a few minutes.

  There was no helping her. He could only find the killer. Now that he knew what to look for, the trail should be easy. The killer would be covered in fresh blood, a strong smell, easy to track. It took only a moment to pick it up and follow it up the trail toward the highway. He zigzagged up the trail like a bloodhound on the scent, moving rapidly because there were few places where the killer could part from the trail withou
t leaving obvious tracks.

  Then Logan stopped, puzzled, and doubled back for a few yards. He sniffed deeply. The blood trail was fading, almost gone. But that was impossible. Blood is not easily washed off. It should remain in the clothes, the hair, the skin, under the nails. Nevertheless it was fading, and what

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  remained under it was strange and difficult to follow, a faint tang of human sweat, adrenaline, ozone, and an undeniable

  something else.

  Logan knew he was losing time. Ignoring caution, he charged ahead, checking the scent only w7hen there was a very obvious possibility the killer could have left the trail. Better to risk a chance of losing him than the certainty of falling hopelessly behind.

  He went on for several minutes until the trees thinned ahead, and he heard the sound of a truck downshifting on the highway. It was then he knew he was too late. The trail ended in a roadside turnout, at fresh tire tracks and a fading cloud of exhaust fumes. “Damn,” he said, the word swallowed in a sudden gust of frigid wind.

  He was worried that Jean hadn’t contacted him tele-pathically, and it was some relief when he found her kneeling quietly by the body.

  She looked up at him, the tear streaks already drying on her cheeks, a burning anger in her eyes. “Her name was Petra. I was in her mind when she died.” She swallowed, struggling for control. “It isn’t the first time, but you can’t imagine anything more terrible. I saw her killer, a big man, silver hair, with—” her brow furrowed, as though she were trying to remember the image “—knives of green fire.”

  Logan knelt next to her. “I lost him. He took a car. No way to track him on the highway. You sure about those knives?” The look in her eyes said she was very sure. He nodded. “It would fit. This ain’t no ordinary killer, that’s for sure.”

  “I couldn’t read him, Logan, not at all. I didn’t even know he was here until the moment he struck. Then it was

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  as if a cloak were thrown aside for a moment, just for a moment.”

  “You get anything?”

  She frowned. “It was confusing, not like one person, but several voices, three or four, talking at once, some to me, some among themselves. It was all a jumble, so difficult to sort out. One of them is a killer, a serial killer, and he’ll kill again. One of them, well, I think our killer may have a hostage, Logan. And this was the really strange thing. I’d swear that one of them, only one of them, was a mutant.”

  They returned to Logan’s Jeep and called the state police from his cell phone. Jean knew someone in the department, a woman whose brother was a low-level mutant, to whom she could tell their whole story with some expectation of being believed.

  She clicked off the phone and looked at Logan. “Drive,” she said. “We can’t leave this to the police.”

  He looked up and down the empty highway. “Which way?”

  “There are only two to choose from.” She hesitated only a moment before glancing back over her shoulder. “That way. ’ ’

  He was already turning. “You know something, darlin’?” “I’m just guessing, Logan. Fifty-fifty chance, and God forgive me if I’m wrong.”

  Logan drove as fast as he dared on the slick road. The Jeep was surefooted but top heavy like most four-by-fours. He knew its limitations, and pushed every one. What he didn’t know was where they were going, or what they were

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  looking for. He glanced over at Jean, uncertain if she was scanning, or just watching the scenery.

  “My friend on the state police said there were three other killings in this part of the state last year, all outdoors, all around the time of the first heavy snow. Not as brutal as what we just saw, and no evidence of anything supernatural or superhuman, but. . . these crimes often escalate as the killer gains confidence. The police considered the idea that there was a new serial killer operating, but they found no solid evidence to link them, and the files are still open.” The sun flashed through the trees into her eyes, making her blink and turn away. “The code name on the file is ‘Snowman.’ ”

  “Well, when we meet the devil, at least we know what to call him. ’ ’ Logan tapped an index finger against his temple. “You gettin’ anything?*’

  She shook her head. “I can’t read him, Logan. Maybe he was distracted by bloodlust and lowered his defenses for a moment.”

  “Great. So all we gotta do is wait for someone else to get killed.” He saw the hurt in her eyes, and regretted his words immediately. “Sorry, darlin’. I know you’re doing the best you can.”

  She put her fingertips over her mouth. “Unless,” she said. “Unless. I said there were several voices. One was a killer, one was a hostage, the others, I’m not sure about. It’s like one of them might be trying to help us.”

  Logan shook his head. “None of this makes sense. I followed one trail back to the highway. He didn’t have a flamin’ entourage with him.”

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  She looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure, Logan?”

  And of course, he wasn’t. The scent had been strange, unlike anything he’d encountered before. There had been that extra something he’d detected, but still only one trail of scent. “If there was more than one, they must have been ridin’ piggyback.”

  “I have another idea, too, about how7 the Snowman picks his victims. Some killers go for a particular physical type—children, or women with long, straight hair—but there was nothing like that in the first three killings. Different sexes, different ages, but I do see something now they may have missed. All of them could be seen as weak or infirm in some way. The last victim was a small woman. One of the earlier ones was in a wheelchair, another an old man with a cane, and so on. For all his apparent power, he preys on the weakest...” Just then she glanced up.

  “Logan, stop!”

  He slammed on the brakes, and the Jeep w^ent into a four-w7heel skid. He turned with it, powering it through a full circle. For a moment he thought they’d get to try out the roll bar, then they w7ere stopped, right in the middle of a five-way intersection. He spun his head from side to side, looking both for cross traffic and less conventional threats, “mat?”

  Jean already had the door open, and had dropped to the icy pavement. “I know this. I’ve seen it before through someone else’s eyes. No, not seen; remembered, or maybe thought. That jumble of images I saw—this was one of them, not a memory, but a plan. He came this way and

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  turned.” She turned in a complete circle, looking down each road. “But which way?”

  A metallic glint caught Logan’s eye, and he climbed out of the Jeep to investigate. At the far right of the intersection the metal support for a stop sign had been bent flat by some impact. “We didn’t do that.” He knelt to examine the post where it has been scraped down to shiny metal, sniffing the exposed surface. “Fresh. Done in the last hour.” He inspected a lone tire track, far enough onto the shoulder not to be lost among the hundreds of others. “It matches what I saw at the turnout.”

  He stepped back to the fallen sign, popped the two outer claws on his right hand, and brought it down hard. Jean flinched at the sound of shearing metal, but the post sliced like butter. He tossed her a three-inch section of metal.

  She looked at it, puzzled.

  “Now we know something else,” he explained, pointing a claw at a smear of pale green paint. ‘ ‘We know what color his wheels are.”

  Back in the car, Jean glanced down at the piece of metal resting on the dash. “Not very stylish, is it?”

  “Good for us. Easier to spot. Besides, this isn’t a new car. No catalytic converter. I could smell that much back at the turnout. Look for a beater. This is getting better. Half an hour back I didn’t think we had a prayer.”

  “You aren’t smiling.”

  “This business is too serious for smilin’, but you’re right. Stupid mistake clipping that sign. No reason for it. Good light, not much tr
affic, and we weren’t right on his tail.

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  Stupid move with us after him, but probably useless if anyone else were doing it. You got something from him during your contact—you think he knows about us too? Him, or our invisible ‘helper’?” That part still didn’t make sense to Logan. Were they talking about one person? Two? Four? A busload? And just who was siding with who?

  Jean seemed confused too. She shook her head. “Maybe, I don’t know. I keep moving the pieces around in my head, and I keep coming back to one result. It doesn’t make sense, but I think the hostage is the mutant.”

  Logan gripped the wheel tighter. A nonmutant killer with super powers, a nonexistent hostage who was a mutant, and a mystery cast of equally nonexistent supporting characters. They were coming into a village, and Jean was looking around anxiously.

  “This could be it,” she said. “Slow down.”

  “I don’t see any cars the right color.”

  “There,” she pointed at a directional sign, “that way.” Logan read the sign as they turned: community senior center V* mile. “Another guess?”

  She shook her head. “Logic.”

  The center was a converted school building, two stories of brick and marble blackened with age. Though the sign out front advertised a potluck lunch to have been held only a few hours before, the place was nearly deserted now. There was no sign of the green beater they were looking for.

  “Go around the block,” Jean suggested.

  Still no sign of the car. They were cruising slowly through a tree-lined residential street when Jean’s face went

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  ashen. “I can read them, Logan, like someone opening a door. He’s stalking his victim now!”

  She directed him through several turns toward a block several streets east.

  “It’s an elderly woman walking home from the potluck. I’m going to try and warn her telepathically. I only hope I don’t frighten her into inaction.” Jean’s eyes closed and she frowned with concentration. “She understands. She’s trying to get to safety, Logan, but she’s too slow! The Snowman is moving toward her!”