Part 7: Backfire

From Rahne’s pocket Bible: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts And every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?”

Rahne was slowly getting more and more back to normal, though devastated by the X-men’s deaths and not at all settled with the issues that had led to her nervous breakdown. She couldn’t bear to think about her friends’ deaths for more than a moment at a time. Her eyes were red from days of constant weeping.

She argued with Shaw about going to Muir Isle to see her mother, but Shaw insisted that it was not safe to leave the fortress yet. She spent hours searching around but never found a way out. She spoke very little with Shaw after that, and kept to her room. He provided her with food, and the closet in her room had been stocked with lots of clothes—all dresses of course, since the Hellfire Club shunned all modern things. She was reluctant to wear them on the grounds that if she needed to shapeshift, they would be ruined and she would be naked when she returned to human form. Shaw argued that that wouldn’t happen because of the power disabler in the fortress, but Rahne still didn’t like it. Her true concern was that her inoculation could wear off at any moment and she didn’t know what would happen then. She wanted to be ready just in case, and the outfit she wore when she ran away was the only one made from unstable molecules, enabling her to shift forms without damaging the clothing. She hid her pocket Bible in her panties, just in case something happened.

She did almost nothing but read her Bible and pray for some miracle to get her out of there and back to her mother. She was sitting on her bed one day when she heard the same knock on the door that she always heard at twelve noon.

“I have your lunch, Ms. Sinclair.” Shaw called to her. “You should really try to eat more. I will leave it outside the door if you like. There is a newspaper on the cart as well, and as I expected, it seems they are still not informing the public about the government’s vicious attacks on the mutant population. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.”

Ye can put me on a plane to Muir Isle, she thought. Or bring Lady Moira here. Oh, what’s the use? The man has no heart, even if he claims to be reformed now! I don’t trust him at all. But what if he’s telling me the truth and the X-men are all dead? I won’t want to live either! They’re my family, almost as much as Lady Moira is. I can’t see more of them dead, it’s just too hard! When my poor darling Doug died, it nearly killed me with grief! First Doug, then Warlock, and now, if Shaw’s really no longer a charlatan, they are all dead. Lord, please, let Shaw be a liar and get me out of here! Send some angel to free me from this strange place!

Her stomach growled, reminding her that she must stay strong and ready in case some opportunity to escape presented itself. She retrieved the cart after she was sure he had walked off, and lifted the cover to unveil an exquisite meal, prepared with great care. The food had an aroma that made her mouth water, and she ate every bite, unaware that she had just been drugged.

Wolverine did not like the surprise of his powers not functioning in the structure he had infiltrated. He wasn’t scared: he could count on one hand the number of people who stood a chance against him in hand-to-hand combat. But without his enhanced sense of smell or hearing, his tracking ability was more limited. His instincts told him to delve into the underground fortress, and so he did.

The high ceilings in the fortress provided an ideal way for him to roam about unseen by whoever occupied the place. He eventually came to a large, round room of stone walls. Only candles lighted it, and etched into the walls were strange writings and symbols. It resembled a church sanctuary more than a basement, but not like any he had ever seen.

At last he saw what he was looking for. She was lying on an altar, in a white dress, unconscious but alive. Candles and incense burned all around her.

What the hell is going on here?

He knew better than to jump down from the ceiling at the first sight of her. He knew that it had to be Shaw behind all this, but he didn’t know if anyone else was in the building, or if Shaw’s powers still functioned. This looked like a trap to him. Suddenly Shaw came into the room. He stood near the altar and chanted in a strange language, then pulled out a shiny knife and held it high.

Wolverine came down from the dark above him with both feet impacting his head. Shaw, totally surprised, went down hard. Wolverine kicked him in the gut to knock the wind out of him. Then he grasped his right foot firmly and twisted it quickly, snapping the bones in his ankle, to make sure he stayed down. Once he was satisfied, he went to Rahne. She barely responded when he gave her a small slap.

Damn. He doped her. I need a few answers before I get out of here, but she sure can’t help yet.

Wolverine heard the hammer fall before he heard the shot. He saw his blood splatter Rahne’s mostly unconscious body before he realized he’d been shot. He spun around, bubbling with wrath and refusing to feel the pain. Shaw lay on the floor wheezing, the barrel of his musket smoking.

The fool. So stuck on older times that he carries a musket.

“You picked the wrong man to shoot with a one-shot firearm, dumbass.”

Wolverine needed to make a point to this man, if he was going to leave with his questions answered. Without saying a word, he went about breaking Shaw’s right hand, then his left. Shaw grunted from the pain, but did not speak. Wolverine continued breaking him down by taking Shaw’s knife and pinning his face to the floor with it. Blood rushed from his left cheek and spilled into his eye. Committed to secrecy, as were all members of the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, he remained silent.

Then Wolverine removed Shaw’s left boot and bit off one of his toes. Going to where he knew Shaw could see him, he spit it out into his hand, looked at it, looked at Shaw, and said, “That’s one.” He then inserted the dismembered toe into Shaw’s nose, leaving it hanging out like someone was trying to step out of Shaw’s nostril. The sight made Wolverine laugh genuinely. Shaw’s anger was the only thing keeping him conscious. His best laid plans, years in the making, had blown up in his face and were destroyed in less than an hour. He was bleeding from multiple wounds, and his body was searing with pain. He was powerless, and humbled before his enemies. The demon he had invoked, with seemingly foolproof plans of extorting favors from him, was nowhere to be seen.

Wolverine stood over Shaw and glared mercilessly down at him. There were fifty different ways he could kill Shaw without even having to use his claws. But he had wounds of his own, and needed to get Rahne and get out fast, so that his healing factor could save him. Unfortunately he had to do one last thing, and that was to make Shaw explain to him just what he was doing with Rahne in the first place, even if he had to kill Shaw slowly to find out.

Struggling to breathe and horrified by the reason why, Shaw did not need much more convincing. He told Wolverine everything. He explained that he simply sent the Sentinels out on a random search for a virgin mutant, and that Rahne was the first one they found. He explained that mutant powers would only function in one place in his fortress—the circle on the floor behind the altar.

Still unsure of whether he would open Shaw’s neck or not, Wolverine gathered up Rahne, still dazed and groggy from Shaw’s drugs.

“C’mon girl. We both need a quick healing before we hit the road. Lean on me.”

No sooner had they stepped in the circle than the world around them melted away, replaced with billowing gloomy black fog, rising up from below and filling their view. The sound of a loud and dismal pipe organ echoed from the distance as they watched an imposing dark figure emerge from the mist, his bleached face framed by a flowing black cloak.

There are situations where superhuman powers and physical strength are utterly useless; times when there is nothing a mutant can do to save himself from imminent danger; and there are beings so malevolent that their very presence paralyzes the boldest of warriors, leaving them helpless as babes.

The demon loomed before them and laughed crazily. He had not received what he had wanted from Shaw, but this new development pleased him nonetheless. Not only one human, but two, had foolishly stepped right into his circular prison, and he was free to fill their hearts with anguish and feed on their suffering. Best of all, he had only to kill one of them to inherit from his masters the prize he sought: lordship of the domain he discovered when Shaw conjured him.

“Fools! You have stepped into your worst nightmare.” His chalky face housed vacant eye sockets that made his gaze look like a doorway to a total void.

“ I am…D’SPAYRE! I am fear itself! Your lives, your souls, are MINE to command!

Wolverine and Rahne stood motionless and terrified as the ground beneath their feet glowed with an eerie pale yellow light. Even as the stone floor was replaced with the familiar terrain of Limbo, they were helplessly caught in his spell.

D’Spayre had plenty to work with in the memories of them both…