The Ultimate X-Men Read online

  Or a weapon.

  She felt the radiant heat of the helicopter’s skin on her hands and face, and intuition deep as instinct made Phoenix recoil. It’s a trap! she cried mentally, just as the chase copter gave up its local space-time referents in an incandescent pulse of energy.

  The shock wave gathered Phoenix into its superheated embrace and flung her backward. Protected from physical harm by her telekinesis, she nonetheless crashed through Bobby’s already-melting ice bridge, sending him flying as

  THE UlTinATE X-HEH

  well. Disoriented, she couldn’t see where her teammates were, or even be sure in which direction the ground lay.

  But Phoenix had shielded Archangel from the brunt of the explosion. With less than five seconds to intercept both his teammates before they hit the ground, Warren spread his wings wide, angling each pinion for maximum drag as he surfed the wave of sweltering air, and reached out to snatch Iceman’s falling body out of the sky.

  One.

  Reaching out with the blind instinct of a seasoned aer-ialist, Bobby grabbed Warren’s reaching hand.

  Two.

  Muscles and wings both creaked with the strain of absorbing the momentum of Bobby’s helpless plunge, and in a moment more both men would fall.

  But the air was Archangel’s element.

  Three.

  “Heads up, Hank—catch!” he shouted. Using Bobby’s own momentum, Archangel made his own body a fulcrum to swing his teammate over and down into the Beast’s waiting arms.

  Four.

  Converting the braking maneuver into a forward glide, he slid forward with a raptor’s casual grace to intercept Phoenix’s falling body less than a dozen feet above the ground, carrying her safely to earth.

  Five.

  Down and safe.

  “It’s wonderful to have wings,” Archangel said fervently. He straightened out of his landing crouch, setting Jean Grey

  lightly on her feet. She smiled at him and reached up to brush back a stray curl of blond hair from his forehead.

  “I know,” she said gently.

  “How come I end up with you and Warren gets the girl?” Iceman complained to the Beast.

  “Because, Robert m’lad, some things never change,” Henry McCoy said absently. He set Iceman down and stepped back, staring skyward with a frown and absently brushing melting frost from his coat. He looked toward Cyclops, brows raised in puzzlement.

  Scott Summers glanced at his watch. It was a quarter after three; less than five minutes had elapsed since Archangel had gone to investigate a peculiar noise.

  And then. . .

  And then whatf

  Cyclops looked around, but as far as he could see and hear, the threat was over. He allowed himself to relax slightly; Bobby and the others were all right. None of his team killed—this time, the ever-present fear reminded him—no one captured, no one hurt. As fights went, that was the best the X-Men could expect these days. The only definite casualty of the engagement was one might-be innocent man, the so-called Wheel of Fortune.

  The faint wail of a siren in the distance warned that the alarms and excursions at the mansion on Greymalkin Lane hadn’t gone unremarked by the citizens of Salem Center.

  “Just another Pleasant Valley Sunday,” Archangel said derisively. “Business as usual for the X-Men, the Hard-Luck Harrys of the super hero trade.”

  Scott Summers glanced toward the edge of the trees,

  Itlt UlTlfWE im

  where the only evidence that anything had happened at all was one splintered tree and a charred spot on the ground.

  No. Not the only evidence, Scott corrected himself. With a profound sense of unreality, he stared at the swimming pool, now located inexplicably at the foot of the terrace. The water was liquid—had Bobby really fallen into it, or had that been some bizarre sort of hallucination? He shook his head in bafflement.

  “Come on, team, let’s take this inside before the authorities come looking.” He turned his back on the unaccountable swimming pool and started up the steps. The others followed as he opened the French doors and went into the house.

  The welcoming quiet of the mansion’s interior told Scott that any alarms triggered by the intruder hadn’t disturbed the mansion’s other inhabitants. The flash had been visible for miles, though, which meant he’d better have some kind of an explanation ready for any of the teams that were heading home because of it.

  “What the hell was that?” Bobby Drake demanded indignantly, breaking into Scott’s thoughts. “Another nutty government agency? A crazed multinational? Girl Scouts?”

  “We’ll probably never know,” Cyclops answered. “Go and change, Bobby,” he added out of habit.

  “Not if we’re lucky,” Iceman muttered under his breath. He headed for the stairs to find his room and a change of clothes.

  The other four looked at each other.

  “It’s a strange world,” Archangel said finally. The words sounded hollow even as he spoke them.

  “Maybe,” the Beast answered, as if Warren had said more than he had, “but it’s a wonderful life.”

  STILLBORN IN THE HIST

  Dean Wesley Smith

  Illustration by Ralph Reese

  The swirling mist off the Mississippi gripped the narrow streets of the French Quarter in a deadly blanket of silence as her body was dumped out onto the black, damp cobblestone like so much garbage. The last of her blood dripped from the slash across her neck, adding only slighdy to the bloodstain on her white prom dress.

  She rolled once, ending up against the shallow curb, eyes open, staring unseeing up at the moss- and vine-covered buildings around her.

  “Hurry,” a hoarse whisper said from the driver’s seat of the black insides of the dented old Caddie.

  “Done,” another voice from the black interior said. “Go.”

  The rear door on the passenger side of the old car slammed, sending a hollow echo down the narrow street. Then, tires spinning on the damp surface, the car fishtailed forward, disappearing into the mist like a fleeing ghost, leaving behind only the echo of its passing.

  The mist swirled in the faint light over the young woman, closing down over her white face and dress as if trying to protect her from being seen in the night. Only the blue orchid corsage still pinned to her new dress marked her location like a flower on a grave.

  Two blocks away Remy LeBeau walked almost aimlessly through the mist, not seeming even to notice the pre-dawn night around him. His long brown raincoat was pulled tight across his chest, the collar up as if protecting his neck from unseen rain. A black headband held the long, unruly brown hair out of his face. A lit cigarette drooped from his lips, the orange glow of the ember giving his face sharp, deep

  ire umnm i-m

  shadows. In his left hand he carried a long staff, using it almost as a cane.

  His eyes seemed blank, as if he were walking the street at a different time. In a sense, he was doing just that. He was living the time of his youth. The time of his marriage. The time of his banishment from this, his hometown.

  The memories of those days swirled around him, mixing with the mist, filling the streets and buildings with his past life. This was his first night back in New Orleans in a very long while, and he wasn’t sure why he was even here now. Somehow, he just knew he was needed here. Over the years he had learned to trust that feeling.

  So now he walked in the mist through the streets of the Quarter in the hours just before sunrise, the only time le vieux carre ever was truly quiet, thinking of the past, of his life as it had been, and paying very little attention to the present.

  Suddenly he stopped and glanced around. A few blocks to his right a group of drunk tourists on Bourbon Street laughed too loudly, sending echoes of their party through the sleeping Quarter. Otherwise, the streets were empty.

  Yet suddenly the present called to him, pulling him from his memories of his wife and his family. He didn’t know how, exactly, but he knew something was happening.


  He turned away from the tourists and toward the edge of the quarter where it was bordered by the projects. At a fast run he followed his instincts, his raincoat flapping behind him like wings.

  It was only moments before he found her.

  “Oh, no, chere,” he said, kneeling beside her.

  He ignored the gash across her neck and gently picked

  n

  mmm in the hut

  up her head, looking into her open, staring eyes. Again his memories took over and he went back to the moment he’d last seen those eyes, beaming from the radiant face of a sixteen-year-old girl standing beside her father while they waited to board a plane back to New Orleans.

  Cornelia Hayward, daughter of Julian Hayward, the most powerful man in New Orleans, and one of the ten most powerful people in the country. Rumors were that he controlled the powers of the night, as well as the businesses of the day. Even the assassins’ and the thieves’ guilds didn’t cross Hayward and he in turn left them alone. But Remy knew him and had helped him a number of times.

  That day in the airport Remy had taken Cornelia’s hand and kissed the back of it, and she had almost blushed. Her father had smiled and shaken Remy’s hand. He had invited Remy to visit, even though he knew Remy was an outlaw in his own hometown.

  Remy would never have guessed he had been drawn back here because of Cornelia.

  As if picking up a rag doll, he lifted Cornelia’s thin young body from the damp street. Her head started to roll back, exposing the huge slash across her neck, and he quickly braced her head against his arm, making her seem more like a lover passed out from too much drink.

  He didn’t know how, but some way he needed to get her to her father. Hayward owned a large home in the Garden District, near where Remy used to have a home. A home he had hoped to settle in with his wife. A home he lost when he lost his city.

  “Put her down, LeBeau,” a voice said from behind him.

  lilt UlTftUTf Mir*

  He spun and again her head lolled back, showing the huge gash.

  His hand under her quickly grasped the cards in his coat pocket and waited as a figure stepped from the shadows of a courtyard door.

  Remy almost staggered back as the face of the intruder came into the faint light.

  Julian Hayward stopped a few feet from Remy, never taking his gaze from the Cajun X-Man.

  “Your daughter?” Remy said, lifting the light weight of Cornelia slightly.

  “I know, son,” Hayward said. “But you are not the prey we hoped to catch with this bait. Now put her down and step in here with me. I will explain.”

  “You killin’ your own children, hommeV’

  Hayward laughed. “Corey, honey. Reassure the poor man.”

  Suddenly in Remy’s arms the girl’s body moved. It so startled him, he almost dropped her.

  Somehow she lifted her head, closing the huge gash across her neck as she moved. “Thanks for caring,” she said in a whisper. “You are a dear and I would enjoy staying in your arms, but I can’t. Now please put me down.”

  Then her head rolled back and she was again the body of a dead girl. No pulse, no blood, no life. A huge gash sliced across her neck.

  Remy stared at the now lifeless body in his arms, his mind not believing what he had just seen. Yet, it had happened. He glanced at Hayward and the father nodded, indicating that Remy should put her down.

  STIltDORtl III Tilt BIST

  Carefully, Remy placed the body of the young girl back in the gutter and stood.

  “Now, quickly,” Hayward said. “Come with me.” He turned and moved back into the courtyard and the black shadows beyond.

  Dazed, Remy followed through the courtyard door. There had been a number of times over the years in New Orleans when he knew someone he had once thought dead to be still alive. His wife, Belle, was one. But he had never had a corpse come to life in his arms. At least not until tonight.

  And Hayward had used the term bait? His own daughter as bait? And what was he trying to catch with a dead girl? Who or what would want a dead girl?

  Too many questions.

  Remy, with only a glance at the body in the mist, stepped through the dark courtyard door and was instantly blinded by intense white light. One hand came up to shade his eyes while the other went inside his pocket for his cards. He had the ability to change the potential energy in an object to kinetic energy, creating an instant bomb.

  Crouching, he blinked hard and fast, forcing his eyes to focus on his surroundings more quickly than natural.

  There seemed to be no danger.

  Slowly, he turned around. The door he’d stepped through was nothing more than a black archway. He couldn’t see anything through it, let alone the cobblestone street and the girl’s body that he knew was only a few feet away.

  “Over here, LeBeau,” Hayward’s voice said.

  Remy hesitated while glancing around. The huge room

  THE UlTMATE Ml Ell

  was filled with thousands of computers and machines and at least fifty people, all wearing white lab coats. Only Hayward and Remy and the computers broke the stark whiteness of the room. Every person in the room seemed to be focused on their own task. No one paid him the slightest attention.

  With one more glance at the blank door into the street, Remy moved over where Hayward stood behind a row of white lab coats sitting in front of computer screens. On the one directly in front of Hayward, Remy could see Cornelia’s body in the street.

  Other screens showed the road and the surrounding buildings. It was clearly a very sophisticated surveillance system, one Remy bet even Wolverine would have been interested in studying.

  Remy was about to ask Hayward what in the hell was going on when a white-faced man in a white lab coat at the end of the row said, “I have contact from the east.”

  “Good,” Hayward said.

  Remy leaned forward as out of the corner of the screen a shadow moved. And then another and another.

  “There are nine of them,” another white-faced man in front of a screen said.

  Suddenly, figures appeared out of the shadows around Cornelia, almost as mysteriously as Hayward had appeared. Remy had been raised in the thieves’ guild, trained in not being seen. And he was impressed.

  “Who are dey?” he asked.

  Then he saw. They were children. The oldest didn’t look more than sixteen; the youngest he guessed around ten. They were all dressed in black and moved smoothly, almost

  huliom in the hist

  as if they were floating. But he knew they weren’t. They just knew how to move silently and quickly.

  They surrounded Cornelia’s body and one of them picked her up, her stained white dress a stark contrast to their black bodysuits.

  One of the older children motioned that they should go and almost as quickly as they had appeared, the children and Cornelia’s body disappeared into the shadows.

  Beside Remy, Hayward let out a deep breath, as if relieved. “They took her. Good.”

  “You wanted dis?” Remy asked.

  Hayward nodded, glancing away from the screen and looking directly at Remy. “You look as if you could use a drink. And I know I do.” He put a heavy hand on Remy’s shoulder and turned him away from the monitor toward a door on the far side of the room. “I will explain. But only after a drink.”

  Hayward’s private office looked nothing like his lab. Oak shelves filled with leather books covered two walls. Expensive paintings under spotlights dominated the other two. A large desk filled one corner, but Hayward directed Remy to the overstuffed couch and then asked him for his choice.

  “Nothin’ ’til I get a few answers.”

  Hayward nodded and punched a small button. A panel and picture slid back and a well-stocked bar slid forward. In silence he poured himself a Scotch and took a good portion of it straight away. Then he refilled his glass and turned to Remy.

  “You almost destroyed my plan tonight, son.”

  “I was t’inkin’ I was help
in’, me.”

  Itlf OLimATE X-ilfH

  fOllII AHORY nUTAflTS

  OH THE AIR

  lit illTIHATE X-HtH

  m oiTiniTt x-ntfi

  Itlf OLimATE X-ilfH

  Hayward laughed, then dropped down into a large chair that faced the couch. He took another sip of his Scotch and then sighed. “Remy, you remember the last time Cornelia and I saw you?”

  ‘Airport. ’ ’

  Hayward nodded. “We were returning from the best specialists in the country. Cornelia had only two months to live at that point.”

  “What?” Remy almost stood, but instead moved to the edge of the couch.

  ‘Nothing anyone could do. Hereditary illness, the same that killed her mother. I had always feared it would take my daughter, too, and it did.”

  Remy didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing as Hayward again sipped his Scotch.

  “I spent most of Cornelia’s life working on a way to save her. When you last saw us, I had determined that I had failed. There was no cure. So I went the next step. I figured out a way to bring her back after she was dead. ’ ’

  “De Elixir o’ Life?” Remy asked. For generations both the thieves’ guild and the assassins’ guild had fought over the Elixir of Life. It was the very reason Remy had been banned from his hometown.

  Hayward laughed, dismissing Remy’s question with a wave of his hand. “Not hardly. You and your family made sure that wasn’t possible. Besides, there was too much baggage with that Elixir.”

  “Den how?”

  Hayward laughed, but this time his laugh sounded hollow and strained, as if directed at his own personal demon.

  5TILLD0RH in Tit HIST

  “I mixed science with black magic,” he said. “Simple, actually.”

  “Voodoo?” Remy asked, his stomach sinking at the thought of zombies.

  “Not really,” Hayward said. “I just studied the principles behind the voodoo and the zombie legends and applied science to them. By the time Cornelia died, I had the answer. I brought her back.”

  Remy nodded. So the young girl he’d picked up in the street had actually been dead. But somehow reanimated with life. Science or black magic, she was still a zombie. One of the walking dead.