by Stuart Moore
“Uh, Steve?”
Rhodes had barely spoken the words when a rush of air whizzed past Cap’s face. “We’re falling?”
“He’s in my system,” Rhodes said. “I’m fighting him, but he’s… Ah, no, he’s deactivated my jets! We’re gonna…”
The ground rushed up with dizzying speed. Gritting his teeth, Cap thrust his body sideways and leaped free. He spread his feet and tossed his shield in the air, then braced himself. Not on the bad arm, he thought. Not on the arm. Not on the–
He landed gracefully, but his relief didn’t last long. Tony was already stalking toward him – lenses glowing, still not speaking. The silence, Cap realized, was the most eerie thing. Tony never went into battle without firing off a few annoying quips.
Rhodey crashed to the ground.
Tony raised a hand and fired. Cap snatched his shield out of the air and flipped it forward, just in time to repel a repulsor beam. The energy rebounded harmlessly – sizzling back onto Tony’s armor, knocking him off balance.
Natasha was suddenly, silently at Cap’s shoulder. “Rocket’s OK, but stunned,” she said.
“I’m out for now too,” Rhodes said, over the comm. “At least till I can purge Tony from my system. What’s wrong with him, anyway?”
Tony staggered, his palms beginning to glow again. “Something’s controlling him,” Natasha said.
“Or someone.” Cap grimaced at her. “Well, we’ve taken down Tony before. It won’t be easy, but–”
“Uh, Steve?”
He followed her pointing finger. The door of the pizza parlor opened, and out walked a figure in black tights with an eerie white glyph painted along them. He held a jagged wooden staff, half-hidden beneath a violet cloak.
“Doctor Voodoo,” Cap hissed. “Is he being controlled too?”
“Also,” Natasha said, “is he eating a slice?”
Voodoo bit off a chunk of pizza and tossed away the crust. Then he stepped out between two stone benches, several yards away from Tony. He raised his hands and began to conjure, forming an eerie glowing disk in the air.
This is bad, Cap thought. We’ve been ambushed. Two of our own turned against us, two more taken out right away. And in terms of raw power, Natasha and I can’t compare to what we’re facing.
“That ‘big gun’ of yours?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Still twenty minutes out.”
Tony raised his hands again, palms and chest plate glowing. Voodoo cocked his head at an odd angle and spread his arms, expanding the mystic energy into a living, glowing shield.
“OK then.” Cap slammed a fist into his palm. “You and me.”
He gestured forward. She nodded, flashed him a tight smile, and together they charged.
Chapter 41
“Your grandfather had a lot of stories,” the old woman said. “He killed people, you know.”
Gamora drew her sword. There was no mistake: this was her prey. The face she’d seen in the fire, the burning eyes and high cheekbones. At last her path was clear. The vengeance of Praeterus was at hand.
Halla-ar’s grandmother, Ann-ya, stood with her husband in front of the armchair, the two of them sporting the same dull-eyed stare. Halla-ar shifted back and forth next to Ms Marvel, holding the eye-talisman slack at his side. Kir-ra sat on the sofa, blinking in confusion.
“That was his job, killing people,” Ann-ya continued. “His patriotic duty. But sometimes he wasn’t too picky about his targets.”
Gamora lunged, but before she could reach the old woman, Kir-ra leaped up to block her path. She grabbed the Guardian’s sword arm in a strong but shaky grip.
“Stay…” The Kree woman shook her head as if trying to clear it. “Stay away from my family!”
Gamora wrenched her arm free and fell into a defensive posture, bracing herself against the wall of the cramped room. “You’re unarmed,” she said, feeling a sudden pang of sympathy. “And you don’t exactly look battle-ready.”
“I might surprise you.”
“Stop it! Both of you!” Ms Marvel stepped between them, literally pushing the two women apart. “Have you forgotten why we’re here?”
“Oh, I remember.” Gamora pointed her sword at Ann-ya. “This is her… the destroyer of Praeterus. I remember now.”
“Halla-ar?” Ms Marvel called.
The boy approached, holding up the eye. It glowed brighter as he came near to his grandparents. He held it up to Grandpa, and it hummed. When he moved it closer to Ann-ya, it gave off an identical hum.
“I don’t know.” He stared at his grandfather, whose expressionless eyes were fixed on a point behind him on the wall. Then he turned to Ann-ya. “Grandma?”
Ann-ya blinked and looked up, as if she’d suddenly come out of a trance. She glanced at Gamora’s sword and let out a short, humorless laugh. Then she turned solemnly to Halla-ar and Kir-ra.
“He escaped from the Skrulls,” Ann-ya said, as if nothing had interrupted her story. “He came home broken, barely alive. Six months I nursed him, took care of him, bathed him and changed his dressings. And then he died in my arms.”
Gamora felt the shock run through everyone in the room.
“Wh- What?” Kamala gasped.
“Grandma?” Halla-ar said. “Wh- What are you saying? Grandpa’s not dead. He’s here. He’s right here.”
The old man stared straight ahead. He didn’t even blink.
“Sometimes…” Ann-ya walked to the center of the room, eyeing each of them in turn. “Sometimes you convince yourself it was a dream. Something that happened to someone else. And then it all comes rushing back, bleak and terrible. And you know: it was me.”
She turned, despair in her eyes, to face Gamora.
“I did that thing.”
“Well, I guess that’s enough war stories.”
Gamora whirled toward the sofa, searching for the source of the voice. The air seemed to shimmer, clearing to reveal a man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, with dark, staring eyes.
“There you are,” Kir-ra said to the man. She seemed confused, disoriented. “I… I thought you’d gone out–”
The hooded man reached out, cobra-like, and grabbed Kir-ra in a headlock, pulling her down onto the sofa. Gamora tensed, prepared to strike – then froze as she saw the Glock in his hand, its barrel jammed up against Kir-ra’s temple.
“Stay back,” the man said. The gun’s hammer was cocked back, ready to fire. “Just stay back, now.”
“Let her go!” Halla-ar cried. “Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of your sister’s,” the man said. “She brought me here to meet the family. I was enjoying the stories – nice and bloody. But then the party started to get crowded, and I thought it might be better to… cloak myself.”
That sweatshirt… Gamora remembered Captain America’s description, back at Stark Tower. “The Hood,” she said.
“Right! They call me that, because…” He tried to gesture at his hood and wound up pressing his arm harder against Kir-ra’s throat. “Ah, sorry, doll.”
“Kill – you,” Kir-ra gasped.
“You might, under some circumstances. But you had a lot to drink back at the bar, while Feliks poured me glass after glass of colored water. And the device in my bag here was busy too, secreting a sort of dulling herb into the air.” He shrugged. “Voodoo? I don’t understand it.”
Gamora glanced at the old woman. Ann-ya had retreated to stand beside her husband, at the armchair across from the sofa. Her expression showed nothing but dull resignation; she seemed not to care at all that a strange man was menacing her granddaughter at gunpoint.
“Why – me?” Kir-ra asked.
The Hood gave her a creepy smile. “I needed to be here, in this charming little hovel, for what’s coming. Oh, I could have just broken in, but it’s so nice, so civilized to be i
nvited inside. And, well…” He shrugged. “I enjoy spending time with lonely, desperate women.”
Kir-ra struggled, but the Hood just kept smiling. “I was right,” he said, “you’re no fighter.”
Ms Marvel exchanged glances with Halla-ar. They started toward the sofa – then stopped as the Hood turned to face them.
“Look, I’m not stupid,” he said, pressing the gun against Kir-ra’s head. “There’s four of you and one of me; ultimately I am not going to win this showdown. I just need the green Amazon over there to not murder an old lady for a few more minutes.” He paused. “You know, when I say that out loud, it sure sounds like I’m the good guy here.”
Gamora watched him, eyes narrowing. She could take down a normal human before he could blink; probably the Earth girl or the Kree boy could manage it in a few seconds more. But could any of them get to him before he pulled that trigger?
“Just listen to the old bat’s story. That’s all I’m asking.” He looked from Gamora to Ms Marvel, and then finally to Halla-ar. “That’s reasonable, right? I’m being reasonable. You want to hear the end, don’t you?”
The boy, Halla-ar, watched with teeth gritted, clenching and unclenching his fists. Grandpa stood still as a statue, one hand resting on the back of his armchair.
Ann-ya let out a long sigh and hung her head. She crossed past her husband and half-fell into his armchair. Then she began to cry.
“When he died,” she sobbed. “When he was gone, I had nothing. All three of my children taken by that war, and now him.”
Gamora glanced at the Hood and Kir-ra. He was hunched forward; she listened anxiously, unable to move. His gun hadn’t moved from her temple.
“I kept his death from the young ones. From my poor, innocent grandchildren.” Ann-ya let out a dry laugh. “I told them he’d gone away, back to Hala to receive some honor. Little Halla-ar… you were so proud of your Grandpa.”
Halla-ar trembled, staring as he listened. He wiped a tear from his cheek.
“But I… I was so alone,” Ann-ya continued. “I went a little mad. I started looking into the dark arts. Not much of that on Praeterus! But I managed to craft a few idols, cast a few spells.”
Gamora frowned. This was not what she’d expected. How could this frail, grief-stricken woman be the creature that had destroyed a planet?
“Eventually I broke through… well, through something. A veil, a curtain between worlds. Found myself face to face with–”
“The devil,” the Hood said. Something flashed in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” Ann-ya said. “I don’t… All I know is, I’d had enough. All my life I toiled for the Empire, sent my children and my husband off to fight and die. And the Kree rulers never gave me anything in return. No one had ever done anything for me, until that moment.
“This, this devil… he asked me to do something. And in return…” She glanced up, almost wincing. “He gave my husband back to me.”
Ms Marvel glanced at the stunned Halla-ar, then said, “You’re saying this entity actually resurrected him? Brought him back from the dead?”
“No, he wasn’t the same. He only said things… things that I already…” Her voice faltered. “But I could pretend. Sometimes I almost believed it was him.”
Gamora studied Grandpa. He seemed even more still now, as if he were made of stone. His eyes were closed.
“A poor reward,” Gamora hissed, “for genocide.”
“You don’t know… you don’t understand. The loneliness.” A flash of rage crossed Ann-ya ’s face. “The neglect.”
“So you agreed to destroy your world. To murder tens of thousands of people, all your friends and neighbors.”
“I didn’t understand,” Ann-ya said. “He didn’t fully explain the price, and I didn’t ask. When the day came, he just sort of… took me over.” An unearthly fire rose up, just for a moment, in her eyes. “It was like a dream.”
“Oh, come on, Grandma.” The Hood smirked. “Be honest.”
“Honest?” She laughed again. “Yes. To tell the truth, I knew.”
“Grandma,” Halla-ar croaked. “Grandma, no.”
“‘Grandma, no’,” the Hood mocked. “Oh, this was worth it. Such drama! So much pain, so many feels.”
Halla-ar moved toward him. “I will kill you–”
“I knew,” Ann-ya and her husband said, in unison. “I knew, and still I killed them.”
Gamora winced. The two voices – one dead, one alive – sounded eerie, discordant. She could feel the fire behind Ann-ya’s eyes, the still unseen enemy.
“I knew,” Ann-ya whispered, and bowed her head.
Halla-ar stared in horror.
The Hood burst out laughing. “Now that!” he cried. “That’s what I call an ending–”
Kir-ra jabbed out, thrusting a rigid hand into his neck. He let out a strangled noise and released her; she tumbled to the floor, gasping. The gun slipped in his hand, but he managed to keep hold of it.
Gamora, Halla-ar, and Ms Marvel all charged at once. The Hood watched them come and laughed. He raised the gun to his eye, sighted carefully–
–and fired past them, emptying the chamber into Grandpa.
Gamora skidded to a halt, ducked low, and turned to look. Across the room, Grandpa’s figure seemed to shake and waver as the bullets struck him. His eyes opened once, and the look of surprise on them seemed very real. Very human.
As the final bullet sliced past him to shatter the window, his eyes rolled up into his head and he crumbled to dust.
“No.” Ann-ya stared in horror at the pile of ash that had been her husband. “Not again.”
Ms Marvel and Halla-ar grabbed the Hood roughly, but he just laughed. “The big climax,” he said. “A shock ending!”
Ann-ya sifted her husband’s remains through limp fingers. “No. No no no.” She looked up to the ceiling, opened her mouth in a silent scream, and began to glow.
“No,” Gamora whispered, staring at the old woman. “It’s happening again.”
“He promised.” Ann-ya turned, shining, to glare at the Hood. “You promised!”
The Hood’s eyes flared bright. He threw off Halla-ar and Ms Marvel, and reached down for his bag.
Ann-ya began to stalk toward him. Her face, her features, were lost in the fire. The same cosmic fire that had consumed the planet Praeterus; the failure that had haunted Gamora, all these long months.
There was no choice, no conscious decision. Gamora threw herself at the glowing figure, slashing out with her sword. The heat, the radiation, washed over her in an agonizing wave. She cried out, feeling the sword slip from her hand.
She caught a quick glimpse of Ms Marvel struggling to her feet. Kir-ra clawing her way across the floor, clutching her head. Halla-ar raising a hand to shield his eyes from the blazing radiance that filled the room.
The Hood ignored them all. He reached into his bag and pulled out a strange skull-shaped device. His eyes were wide, hungry, filled with the power that possessed both him and that poor, anguished old woman.
“Sometimes,” Ann-ya said, “you tell yourself it was a dream…”
As Gamora’s arms closed around that raging form, bolts of agony rippled across her skin. Once again, as in the dome on Praeterus, the stored energy of a dying world shot through her – burning her flesh, shattering her senses. And once again, inevitably, she failed to hold it, and was lost to pain and darkness.
Chapter 42
Outside in the parking lot, Captain America led the charge, shield held before him. The Black Widow followed, her wrist-stingers crackling with energy.
From a prison made of bones, Jericho Drumm watched in frustration and helpless, mounting horror. The image filled the air, huge and inescapable. Cap with his wounded arm and boundless determination; Natasha with teeth gritted, figuring the angles as always. Tony Stark
standing like a stone, waiting to meet them with weapons charged.
And the fourth figure: Jericho himself, in the full ceremonial garb of Doctor Voodoo. Except it wasn’t Jericho who controlled his body – not anymore. He had been both possessed and dispossessed by his dead brother, Daniel, mere days ago. Now Daniel wielded the Shield of the Seraphim, the Rings of Raggadorr, and a thousand other mystical implements, in addition to the innate powers of Doctor Voodoo. He even held the Staff of Legba, the compass-rod that had guided Jericho whenever he found himself at a crossroads in life.
Under other circumstances, Jericho might have appreciated the irony. He, who had used his power to take possession of others’ bodies many times in the past, had fallen victim to the same fate. But as he watched the two Avengers run to their doom, he felt only desperation.
Brother! he cried, in a voice that made no sound. You must stop this!
He ran to the wall of his cage, a thin lattice of bones held together by strands of mystic energy. Spotting a small opening, he dove for it – but the bones clattered and shifted, filling the hole in the wall, and he rattled up against them. He cursed and turned back to the images in the air–
–just in time to see his own body raise the Shield of the Seraphim, a shimmering gold disk. Captain America and the Black Widow struck the shield and flew backward, repelled by the mystic barrier.
Jericho let out a howl of frustration. He could see every detail of the battle, but he was powerless to act! He reached out and rattled the bones of his cage.
Then Daniel’s voice was all around, mocking and malevolent. YOU KNOW THIS PRISON IS ONLY IN YOUR MIND, RIGHT? He laughed. SORRY. MY MIND, NOW.
Break off your attack, Jericho demanded. The Avengers are our allies!
THEY ARE THE MASTER’S ENEMIES, Daniel said. THEY MUST BE PUT DOWN.
