|
#1
APR 09 |
 |
*The events depicted in this issue take place shortly after the final issue of Marvel’s Ghost Rider #94 (Vol. 2) in a 12-month time span before the official launch of The Defenders, Druid, Ghost Rider, Midnight Sons and Nightstalkers.
It is a common misconception that Hell is hot.
There are fires, of course; never ending infernos that blaze out of control like wildfires in a California forest, bathing the caverns and crevices of the Underworld in scarlet hues that conjure relentless images of blood and red. Living in Hell is akin to living on the tip of an eternally burning match, a world saturated with phosphorus and sparks. But again, the common misconception relates to the temperature.
Anthony Ludgate trudged up the peak of Mount Avarice, a tattered cloak hugged tightly against his body the only protection from the gusts of high winds. In the shadow of the mountain, should one stop and remain still for too long, they could easily find themselves frozen solid. Hell is the absence of warmth, a chilling cold produced by the unnatural flames licking through the air, flames that burn not the body, but a cold sensation that numbs and engulfs the soul.
Ludgate peered from beneath his hood, trying to ignore the ache in his joints, the hunger in his belly and the blisters on his bare feet. He had no conception of how long he’d been a prisoner of the Realm Infernal, time being an outdated concept in such a place. But trapped he may have been, he had recently won a freedom of sorts - a freedom from the unceasing torment inflicted upon him by his demonic torturer. That particular demon was now destroyed, his soul eaten by the one that had so generously aided Ludgate’s bid for escape. Now it was time for step two.
“I’ve arrived,” he said, his voice a withered rasp due to a lack of use, “and I see we have warmth.”
Two men awaited him at the summit of Mount Avarice, two more damned souls free from the agonies of demonic enslavement yet still cursed to wander unbidden through the wastelands of Perdition. Between where the two sat was a flame, true and actual fire that provided a much needed respite from the chilling winds. “Come and sit,” one said with a thick southern accent. The other man simply stoked the fire with a discarded branch of wood.
Ludgate did as suggested, desperate to feel the warmth on his frozen appendages. As he rubbed feeling back into his hands, he looked over his companions with an untrusting gaze. “I demand your identities,” he said, the quiver in his voice betraying the bravado of his words, “and the reason I was sent to you.”
The second man spoke this time, following a chuckle of laughter from the Southerner. “My name is Theodore Sallis,” he stated while continuing to stoke the fire, fearing that it might extinguish without constant care, “and I was once a man of science. A formula intended to create the perfect soldier made me a target for greedy, evil men. When they came for me in my laboratory deep in the Florida swamps, I injected myself with the formula in hopes of saving my life. I died the moment I fell into the swamp, but my body rose again as a mindless mockery of life. While my soul languishes in Hell, my body roams the Everglades as the creature men call...the Man-Thing.”
Anthony nodded his head. “I know of such a creature. I encountered it in life.”
“As to why you have come to us,” Sallis continued, “we bring you the knowledge of sight into the world of the living. Our conditions allow us to view Earth from afar, a particularly cruel side to our damnation - seeing a world we can never return to.”
Sallis leaned closer to the fire, the shadows playing across his face. “This is the story of the Red Event...”
Introduction: The Red Event
Jennifer Kale:
It was late in the evening when everything went red. And I do mean everything. It was the only color I could see for a few seconds and, when the world returned to normal, I felt this great sense of loss, as if somehow the world was less than it was. When it happened, I was sitting in front of the telly watching Ghost Whisperer and laughing at all the ways she got everything wrong while still looking pretty. So much for the ‘magic’ of silly television.
After it happened I tried to examine what had happened mystically, calling on all the powers and abilities I had learned from Dakhim and on through my extensive studies of the works of Zerhed-Na. There weren’t any results to speak of; the only thing I noticed was that the Red Event’ somehow originated in Colorado, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
Naturally, I had to look into it. Being the custodian of the Legacy of Zerhed-Na has its peculiar responsibilities attached, apart from being a smart and sexy witch. Unfortunately, I had no means of transportation to get me to Colorado fast, living all the way out here in Florida. Major problem, but not when the town you live in is called Citrusville and the Nexus of every possible reality is located right here, if you know how to find it. I put on some clothes, got my bag and headed into the swamp surrounding the little town of Citrusville.
Enter my gruesome buddy the Man-Thing. He guards that place with all he’s got, it’s just too bad that all he’s got doesn’t include a brain. Still, I sometimes get the feeling that there is still a man in there somewhere. Ted Sallis, the man who became the swamp-creature years ago, always used to stare at me when I still did my magic wearing a skimpy blue bikini, but since I took to wearing tops and jeans…not so much. No matter, I can’t be the magic-maiden forever. As gruesome as he looks, a shambling mount of rotting vegetable matter roughly shaped like a person, he can be quite helpful if you trust him. Just don’t ever fear him! Because what ever knows fear burns at the Man Thing’s touch! Yeah, I said it!
Somehow, when I encountered the old shambling veggie, he knew what I wanted. Slowly we moved into the swamp until I saw it: a diamond-shaped tear in the fabric of reality, multi-colored light shining out of it. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen the Nexus but it was still special and very beautiful. As soon as we arrived, poor Man Thing shambled off again, probably sensing that his work was done. Poor creature… But I couldn’t dwell on that now.
I entered the Nexus, letting the interdimensional forces wash over me, envelop me and consume me. It felt nice, like standing under a hot shower after a cold winter-day. Not that we get too many of those out here in Florida, but you get the picture. When I exited, through a vortex that closed before I even had a chance to look behind me, I was standing in the middle of a rocky prairie. The Rockies loomed large and forbidding in the distance and I saw a single eagle flying overhead. All was deadly quiet, the only sign of civilization was the ruined home of a homesteader that had tried to farm this land in the 1900’s.
And still I knew I wasn’t alone.
Johnny Blaze:
As crazy as it may seem, after all the crazy shit I’ve seen, the ‘Red Event’ scared the holy shit out of me. I was driving down the highway out from Wyoming when it hit; the world turned the color of blood and I lost control over my bike. Can you imagine that, me loosing control? It’s like the Pope forgetting his Hail Mary’s! But it happened and I was only too happy that it was deadly quiet on the road around midnight.
The weird part was that I somehow knew where the event originated. It was close by, in the Rattlesnake Cliffs over in Colorado. No matter how long I’ve been free of the demon that possessed me, I still have this uncanny knack for feeling out the supernatural shit. There’s a good reason I still carry my special shotgun! Anyway, me being the trouble-seeker I am I had to follow through on my hunch, so I got back on my bike and drove to Colorado. I was glad I was wearing my tough leather outfit or I would definitely have scraped off an inch of skin.
When I arrived I saw I wasn’t the only one there. Jennifer Kale, a witch and also my cousin in some convoluted way, was already there. I got of my bike and walked over to her, but she was spooked to see me. We talked a bit and then I found out she had noticed the weird Red Event, too…in Florida no less! It sure seemed there was a whole lot more going on here than seemed to be the case. Together, we decided to explore the place, starting with the shack that was somehow still standing, probably a hundred years after it was built. Jennifer had a spell at the ready and I had my shotgun out, thankful that there’s not a whole lot in this world that can withstand a full-on blast of Hellfire!
Elizabeth Twoyoungmen:
I am a Sacree Shaman, or at least I try to be. I can tell you its hard being accepted by the tribe-elders when you’re father is obviously more suited and you are one of the youngest women living on the reservation. Still, one follows the path that the spirits lay out for you; not because you want to but because you have to. Being the Talisman, the mythical bridge between this world and the spirit-world, is hard enough without swimming against the flow.
I was in the middle of discussions with the tribe-elders when the ‘Red Event’ hit me. I was scared and confused, as I wasn’t even wearing the Talisman-tiara and I didn’t know what this vision meant. The Elders did, however. They always know, or they wouldn’t be Elders. Even when they are clueless, they know.
They told me that the outside world was calling me back…that my time had not yet come to care for my tribe. They said I had to go and seek the source of the disruption I told them about, but that nobody but me had actually seen. One of the Elders, Lame Fox, the smartest of his tribe, offered me assistance. He was an Elder. I am not. I accepted.
He showed me how all the sacred places are connected and how blood connects them more than anything else. I knew already, but I listened anyway. He told me to contact the spirits for the source of this tide of blood and I did. I took the tiara from my medicine pouch, the one that my father had given me, and put the gold band with the red stone on my brow. Lame Fox sang about the ancient atrocities that decimated our people throughout the Americas and I knew where I had to go: the Rattlesnake Cliffs in Colorado, the site of the last stand of the Arapaho nation.
I traveled the spirit path and materialized near a ruined farm built over the bones of the Arapaho. Two people were inside the ruin and I guessed these were other supernatural investigators, looking for trouble or power or whatever. That was when I heard a vehicle approach and watched as a van drive up to me.
Elsa Bloodstone:
Okay, I thought I would be first on the scene to kick the holy shit out of whatever caused me to see red without even getting pissed off! I mean, who would expect some chick in Indian gear to just show up here? I know this place is close to, like, a dozen reservations or casinos or whatever, but it is a bit of a cliché, right? Whatever. I got out of my van with my gun in my hands and a knife at the ready; my hair was already tied back and I had my working clothes on. I know Kevlar doesn’t do much against the fires of hell, but even demons use guns on occasion. Trust me, a career as a monster-hunter has taught me never to underestimate a critter just because he looks like a dinosaur from hell. Some of them are actually pretty smart.
My first priority was to get the citizens out of the way. The Indian girl didn’t take too kindly to that and she gave me look that made me go, “Hooo-Kay! Your funeral!” Pretty cool woman, that one! Anyway, I told her to stay out of my way and I decided to enter the ruined farm building that stood on the plains. If there were a monster in there, it would be a small one. Those are the ones you have to watch out for. They make lousy targets and often pack one hell of an unexpected punch.
So I entered the building, the pissed-off Indian girl right behind me, and that’s when I saw him! Johnny Blaze! Man, that guy is just sex on legs! I know, he’s maybe twice my age, give or take, but a girl can seriously get into that gruff look, all loner-drifter-machismo and tight leather clothes. But I digress. Anyway, it seemed that Johnny actually knew who the Indian girl was. Elizabeth Twoyoungmen, a genuine superhero from Canada named Talisman. Of course, Johnny wasn’t alone. Jennifer Kale, the sweetheart witch of America, was right by his side. Call me crazy, but I do not like that sweetheart-deal. We live in a world of monsters, demons and other shit that would make a girl go running away screaming, and I don’t think that’s a time to be in touch with mommy nature and play the good witchie-poo.
So, I tried to get Johnny to tell me what he knew, which was exactly the same as Indian-girl and Witchie-poo: Jack Shit. They all saw the Red, they all tracked it here, and we all saw there was absolutely nothing to see. We probably should have looked a little harder, because somebody else did find something.
Hannibal King:
No matter how often I hang out with other so-called occult experts, demon-hunters or wizards, it never ceases to amaze what utter tools they can be. Take the matter at hand. An event of tremendous occult significance has taken place and I should know, because no matter how you look at it, Vampires like me are at the low end of the occult food chain. But I noticed it, anyway. Granted, I was close by, staying in Denver, but still it’s pretty amazing for me, Hannibal King, to be included from the get-go.
Now, I’ve seen red before. I usually get that when I’m hungry, but this was different. And the weird part was that I sensed its source. What source, you ask? The source of everything going red! I believe I was actually the first to the scene. Lucky me, I get to find everything out so others can just ask, “Uh…so, King…what do you make of it…?” I’m not complaining…well, maybe I am.
So I watch them all arrive. First sweet little Jennifer Kale, well not so little anymore. Then there’s Johnny Blaze. He of all people should know better, but nooooo… Then this Native American chick, dressed in browns and reds and looking plenty gorgeous, and finally this badass chick with a badass gun and…well, a not so badass van…two out of three, I guess. So what do they do? They head straight into the only structure for miles around. Now that’s just stupid. The first thing you do? You check the environment, which is even more of a necessity for them than for me. I only have to watch out for wood or the sun, whereas they can basically be pierced by anything.
Anyway, after I scoured the surrounding countryside for whatever, I found something worth noticing. A body, of course…then another…and a few more…. Hmmm…you know, seeing dead people is usually not such a big deal for me, its different when you’re dead yourself, let me tell you. But this, well, this was a matter of quantity, not quality.
I called out to the four people standing in the little homestead and they came running out. Unsurprisingly, the blonde chick wasted no time taking aim and shouting, “Vampire!” Well, great, that ruined the surprise for everybody!
Johnny Blaze:
“Wait! Don’t shoot him! That’s Hannibal King! A good guy!” I called to the trigger-happy blonde girl and she hesitated just long enough for Jenny to grab her gun, which was probably a mistake since she got it in the face straight after.
“Are you crazy?” Jenny shouted, clutching her jaw.
Tailsman, who introduced herself as Elizabeth to the others, told all of us to shut the hell up and stand still. My first instinct was to ask her who the hell she thought she was, but then I saw what was happening. All around us, spirits were rising from the ground.
“Bloody hell…” Elsa Bloodstone mumbled under her breath, but kept quiet when Elizabeth shot her a glance that told her in no uncertain terms that bad things would happen if she didn’t shut up. She pulled some tiara from a pouch she wore at her belt and put it on her brow. It was golden with a red heart-shaped stone in front. She started to whisper and the spirits rising seemed to hear her. They looked like Indian warriors from over a hundred years ago or so, and they looked pretty pissed off.
Elizabeth Twoyoungmen:
It took all my powers, both as the Talisman and as a shaman, to get the spirits of the restless braves to listen to me. My own language of Sacree was nothing like theirs, so I just spoke in English and asked them to explain what had awoken them. Imagine my surprise that they had all experienced a red tide washing over them and stirring their anger. No matter how I looked at it, something horrible had occurred here!
Jennifer Kale:
The Indian girl managed to keep the ghosts in check. I had a spell of containment at the ready, but somehow the magic at my fingertips felt different. On the one hand it came much easier to me, but on the other it seemed to hurt more to actually use it. Strange…it was never like this.
As the girl called Elizabeth mesmerized the ghosts, I tried to gather the others as subtlety as possible, even that bitch Bloodstone. God, my jaw hurt! Any harder and she would have broken it! What did I ever do to her, huh? Anyway, the ghosts seemed not to mind me once Elizabeth started speaking, and Hannibal, Johnny and Elsa all gathered around me, behind Elizabeth. I was getting a feeling that this could turn into a confrontation in a heartbeat.
Alesandro di Cagliostro:
Thank the lord for crystal balls! When I learned of an epic concentration of mystic energy about to rise in Colorado, I had no choice but to take the first plane from Florence to the Americas. Granted, not the best place to be for the cultured and wealthy, but one goes where the power lies. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.
I dressed very much the modern businessman, black suit and tie, tailor-made and a designer shirt. There is no law that those who deal in the spiritual or the magical need to be shoddy dressers. My hair was slicked back and my moustache neatly trimmed, although I still lament the fact that hats went out of style (what could possibly be wrong with a Borsalino?). In any even, I would deal with the rising power like I did everything else: with style, with class and with superiority. After all, am I not Alesandro di Cagliostro, the greatest magician to ever walk this planet?
It turned out that whatever rose this night was the one thing I needed to fear after all. I walked into the area around the ramshackle building in the open plains where I had detected the ominous wellspring of power about to erupt and, as I probed the area for its secrets, the world went Red. Everything disappeared in that flash of red light. I fell to the ground, weak and sickly, as I realized what had happened. My entire connection to my personal, environmental and inter-dimensional magic had disappeared! Cagliostro was powerless, reduced to just devilishly handsome and infernally clever Guiseppe Balsamo.
No matter how horrible, this hardly meant I was powerless. I still had the world’s most extensive collection of magical power at my fingertips, through my artifacts and enchanted objects, like this crystal ball, for instance. Once I had hurried off to a nearby town and settled into what passed for a local restaurant, I was just in time to pour a glass of fine cognac and see the girl Kale arrive, followed by a host of others. Not surprising really, as the Red Event I witnessed and was drained by would naturally draw the curious and the strange. Perhaps I was too hasty in leaving the area. This group of mostly benevolent people could very well help me recover what I lost. I am still Guiseppe Balsamo, after all, the man who conned his way into the corridors of power long before he cast his first spell.
Hannibal King:
You may not want to believe it, but the dead truly do walk the earth. Not just as Vampires like me, but in more ways, like the Indian Ghosts that were rising from the ground around the Rattlesnake Cliffs. The girl, Elizabeth, was doing an excellent job of keeping them focused on her but there was a definite source of anger in these ghosts. Trust me, I know. Hauntings have become sort of a specialty for me.
I tried to listen in on the conversation the Indian woman was having with what seemed to be the lead ghost, an old Indian guy whom she addressed as Lost Eagle. He was not garbed in the way of the other braves, but rather wore a black coat and a black hat with some beads and feathers attached to it. Pretty strange for an Indian ghost to appear that way…like a sell-out…and then I remembered what this place was and just who Lost Eagle was, and I suddenly knew why these ghosts were pissed as hell…
Elsa Bloodstone:
Now ghosts may not exactly be my specialty, as I prefer things I can shoot, stab or slash; it just makes it a lot easier that way. But it didn’t take a practiced genius to see that these ghosts were angry as hell. The lead ghost, an Indian dressed like a white man, was talking to the Indian chick and I could see the conversation wasn’t going too well. I had my gun in my hands, but somehow I had the distinct feeling that it wouldn’t do a whole lot of good against these guys. Damn, give me claws and fangs any day instead of this shit!
Of course I was keeping an eye out for my companions, too. Johnny could say whatever he wanted, but there was no way I would let a Vampire, even a so-called Good Guy, out of my sight. Johnny called him a friend but to me he was just another dead thing that needed staking, decapitating and burning. You don’t befriend the undead; you make them real dead!
Elizabeth Twoyoungmen:
Lost Eagle was angry…really angry. He was a famous chief from the past and, as such, I knew a lot about him. From what I had read, he was never this angry. He was a peaceful and reasonable man and that is what got the Arapaho exterminated. His willingness to deal with the white men made him weak, cost him his horses and his weapons, and in the end made him a prime target for slaughter by state militia. Why was he here now? What had brought him here?
“Lost Eagle! Why have you brought your braves here this night?” I asked.
“I do not know you, nor your tribe. Are you Sioux?” the ghostly chief demanded bitterly.
“I am Sacree. I live up North, where the sun dies,” I answered.
“The sun does not die in the North. All life ends here,” the chief said.
“What brings you to us this night? What message do you have for us?”
“My message is this! Death is coming to all your lands. The power that was born here, in the place of our death, has punched a hole through the sky and reached up to Man Above himself. Every evil, dead spirit and creature has been awakened. A Red Tide has begun that will destroy the very heavens and consume all that is, all that will be and all that is still to come,” the old chief said, speaking words of warning but looking like he was going to war.
I considered Lost Eagle’s words. For now, my companions and the spirits were at a stalemate. I had to get Lost Eagle to talk some more to make sure this would not escalate into a supernatural battle. Sure, there were some pretty bad-ass types here backing me up, all capable of fighting ghosts, but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to getting the Arapaho slaughtered again.
Of course, that was when a car arrived, coming to stop with big noises and sand and gravel flying around.
Alesandro di Cagliostro:
Hmm… It seemed that my arrival has caused some consternation among the natives. Best to get my Saber of the Sixth Sphere before one of those savages wants to ‘count my coup’. It’s all very quaint and the Americans probably deserve to be killed for wiping out the Indian Nations. However, that did not mean that I, an Italian, had to be among them.
Johnny Blaze:
At that time I didn’t have a clue who the idiot in the Italian sports car was, but I could see that this was exactly the kind of disturbance we didn’t need. The old Chief pulled out a knife and slashed at Elizabeth. That was my cue: party’s over, break out the Hellfire!!!
Elsa Bloodstone:
Okay, so this I get! These weapons of mine, they should be able to hit a ghost, especially if they can hit me, right? Only fair to be able to hit them back. Call them Ghosts, call them Native Americans, call them victims for all I care! A monster’s a monster and you don’t reason with the tossers! You kill them!
Jennifer Kale:
I truly couldn’t believe how the arrival of a car could cause so much chaos. The Indian Warriors all broke out their weapons and went on the assault. At first I was using some minor magical shields to fend them of, but I could see that it would not be enough. They were fighting like maniacs, true savages. That shouldn’t have been so surprising, really; after all, a ghosts appearance is as much about perception as it is about how they think others see them.
Anyway, left and right Elsa and Johnny were blasting away. Elsa guns didn’t have too much impact but Johnny’s Hellfire shells did, burning the ghosts as if they were solid people. Elsa resorted to fighting them with knifes, which she was really good at. I think I’m impressed with that woman! Equally as impressive was Elizabeth. She was fighting the Chief of the Ghosts, Lost Eagle himself, and unarmed she managed to hold him of, even reasoning with him. Then there was Hannibal King, the Vampire. He was fighting claw and fang and I shudder to think what ghosts taste like to an undead being?
Last of all was the man who showed up in his sports car and caused the fight to break out. He had a saber and was fighting in a way I had only ever seen in the movies. He was dancing as much as he fought, graciously and expertly. Too bad he looked like such an utter scumbag! Whatever, I tried some more offensive magic, but it felt all wrong. You know how magic sometimes seems to rise inside of you, flowing through your body before finally leaving through your limbs? This was different…the mystical bolts I fired didn’t feel at all like the gentle breeze I normally associate with magic, but more like gale-force winds, violent, destructive and powerful. As the bolts struck down the warriors, I knew there was something very wrong.
“We are loosing this!!!” Elsa Bloodstone called out as she stabbed at yet another of the spirit warriors.
All the others had to agree with her. As much damage as they were doing, the spirits just seemed to rise again after a few seconds, none the worse for wear. Johnny blasted them with one burst of Hellfire after another, but they kept coming back. The same went for Guiseppe Balsamo AKA Cagliostro, who was dispatching the spirits easily as he showed off his expert swordsmanship, though every spirit he put down just seemed to rise again. The only one who had any success was Jennifer, but the more magic she used the more her lovely features distorted into a mask of pain and anguish. The magic was harming her and she couldn’t go on much longer. The same was true for Hannibal King. The spirits could not really harm him, but the longer the fight lasted, the more he would loose of his own humanity.
Elizabeth Twoyoungmen was still engaging Lost Eagle. She had drawn a quarterstaff of sorts from her pouch, which housed a conduit into a mystical space where she stored her equipment. The old chief had her firmly on the defensive, however. She was bleeding from a large gash on her cheek, but still she tried to calm the chief down.
“This is utter nonsense!” Cagliostro called out.
“Who asked you, creep?” Johnny said in between firing. “Hey, wait! Aren’t you…?”
“He is Cagliostro…the immortal that feeds of the blood of my kind,” Hannibal King said as he materialized from mist-form between them.
“Well met, Mr. King but, like I said, we are fighting the wrong fight!” Guiseppe insisted.
“What…what’s wrong…?” Jennifer asked, breathing with difficulty, visibly in pain from the bolts of force she had fired at the spirits that were on the verge of surrounding the six mystic warriors.
“We should be fighting the chief!” Johnny said.
“No prob!” Elsa said and flung herself at Lost Eagle. However, the chief saw her coming and let up on his assault on Elizabeth for two seconds to chop her out of the air. His war-axe struck her in the back of the head, mid-flight, and the monster-hunter fell down in the sand as blood gushed out of the wound on her head.
“I was afraid of that…” Cagliostro said, parrying a swipe from a tomahawk himself.
“You should have said that before!” Johnny called, firing his gun at the horde of warriors that were threatening to overwhelm him. Hannibal King had misted over to Elsa to protect her, but even the vampire-detective wasn’t doing too good.
“Shut up…just use your spells, Cagliostro…” Jennifer called, down on her knees from the pain.
“She has to surrender!” Cagliostro called, narrowly avoiding getting hit. Johnny didn’t hesitate, fighting himself a way to Elizabeth to tell her. Even if it was only a four-foot passage through the warriors, he got banged up pretty bad. Cagliostro and Jennifer were left fighting back to back amid the horde of warriors. The young witch once again urged Cagliostro to use some magic, but the old magician said nothing.
“Elizabeth! Surrender! Surrender to the chief!” Johnny called, using his gun as a club now as he had no more room to take aim. Hannibal heard the suggestion and his reaction was to yell his agreement. Elizabeth hesitated only a few seconds, but then decided that there was not much else she could do.
“Lost Eagle! We surrender! Everybody, stop fighting!” Elizabeth called out, and the warriors stopped in their tracks. Elizabeth bowed down to Lost Eagle and handed him her staff. In complete silence the six mystic warriors and the Indians all looked on as Lost Eagle took the staff. He seemed to study it, and Elizabeth, before lifting it up in the air as he shouted his war cry.
“Nice,” Cagliostro said and, out of nowhere he grabbed an old six-shooter from his coat and shot the chief through the head. The shot echoed through the emptiness of the plains and his five companions looked at Cagliostro in horror. Then, to their amazement, all the Indians turned into smoke and, seconds later, faded away into nothingness.
“You maniac!” Elizabeth shouted, grabbing Cagliostro by the collar. Johnny took up his gun again and pointed it at his head.
“No…he was right…” Hannibal said. “Ghosts are very set in their ways. Lost Eagle…he was granted a domain and then betrayed, right? The white men slaughtered him and his tribe?”
“Yes, they did! And he repeated it!” Elizabeth shouted without taking her eyes of Cagliostro.
“He was right to; history repeating itself is the best way to lay ghosts such as these to rest.”
Elizabeth glared at Cagliostro once more, then let him go and turned her attention to the wounded Elsa while Johnny checked on Jennifer.
“You’re a ruthless bastard, aren’t you, Cagliostro?” Hannibal asked the magician, who was putting away his weaponry.
“One has to be when stalking the night,” the magician said and Hannibal could only nod his head in agreement.
Mount Avarice
Hell
Ludgate sat silent once Sallis’ story ended and, for a period of time, the only sound heard was the cracking of the camp fire and the screams heard faintly from the base of the mountain below them. He knew some of the characters present in Theodore’s tale; the former Ghost Rider named Blaze and the vampire Hannibal King having both been acquaintances during his living days. He remembered the names, but the length of time spent in Hell had stolen the memories of their faces, yet another curse heaped upon his damned soul.
“I suppose it is time for my story to be told,” the Southerner spoke up, finally smashing the wall of silence between the three men. “In life my name was Simon Garth and I was a ruthless, selfish man of wealth in my native New Orleans. I neglected my daughter and abused my workers; I led a life of hatred and sin until the day I lived no more, when a man I had wronged murdered me but he ensured that my torment had only just begun. Using the old religion Santeria, this man cursed me with living death. My soul is doomed to wander Hell for eternity, ignored by all other denizens, unheard and unseen despite my longing for human contact. It was only through the grace of our hostess that I am able to speak with you now. My body still roams the Earth much like Sallis and his Man-Thing, but I am now a creature that lives only to be enslaved by others. I walk the world as the monster men call Zombie and I am truly a fearsome Marvel to behold!”
Zombie, the word activated a floodgate of information that had passed forgotten from Ludgate’s mind!
“The information I present to you is far different than Sallis’ tale of the Red Event,” Garth continued, “it is of a force much more pure in its execution and origins. Tell me, Man of Lud, what you know about Vengeance and the Spirit who embodies it?”
Garth paused to shudder at his own words.
“What do you know about the Ghost Rider...?”
One sharp flash. One searing moment.
Then…nothing.
But now…something? Perhaps.
A flicker of infernal awareness, rippling outward, desperate, searching...
Like a trail of invisible fire, it boiled through the skin of the world. Cats stiffened, hissing. Birds took flight, fleeing from an invisible predator. In the sea, a whale drowned rather than surface, for fear of its presence.
It was not mindless, but it was formless. As such, its thoughts were a jangle of shattered images, raw and stabbing. The images, by and large, evoked hatred. It felt mostly hate, a bubbling fiery hate that propelled it ever onward, searching. Hunting.
And then, just like that, it found it.
Home.
Six Months Later
Harmony, Texas
Michael Badilino splashed water on his face from the rust-ridden sink. He met the eyes of his reflection in the cracked mirror and flinched.
His eyes were the color of Hell and he couldn’t bear to see them. A parting gift, the last mark on a man whose soul had once been gutted and replaced by something unpleasant.
Now, of course, he had his soul back, for what it was worth. The problem was, he had no idea to do with it now that he had it back.
Outside, the wind whipped sand against the glass. Badilino grabbed his frayed towel, stolen from a Dallas motel sometime in the previous weeks. Rubbing his face to dry it, he walked out into the rest of the sagging house.
“Home sweet home,” he muttered. He dropped the towel and walked to the door. Leaning against the frame, he watched the wind tear through the ghost-town. Harmony had been built by hippies in the sixties led by a guru named the Reverend Glen, who had formed his town for ‘the eternal contemplation of the divine’.
A year later, everyone was dead. Harmony curled up like an insect on a hot windowsill and was left to rot in the hot Texas sun.
His eyes strayed to the markings that covered the wall of the house…every house, really. There were similar sigils daubed on every speck of space in Harmony. Grafiti left on a corpse.
Badilino peered around the edge of the door. He’d parked his Harley on the porch and covered it with a tarp to protect it from the weather. Satisfied that it was where he’d left it, he went back inside. A cooler sat on the floor and he popped it open, fishing a beer out of the ice. As the liquid poured down his throat, he rubbed the sweat off of his face with the heel of his hand.
Ever since leaving Hell, Badilino had found that his internal boiler was seriously out of whack. He was hot all of the time now, like a low-grade frying sensation. He finished the beer and crushed the can, tossing it at a swathe of darkness on the wall. He’d come to Harmony to study the marks. There was no real reason to do so. He had no overwhelming urge to seek out evil. Not since--
The door banged open. Badilino whirled, clawing for the pistol on his hip. He drew it and swung around, looking for a target.
Nothing.
He let out a breath. “Dumb,” he said. The banging door was his only reply. He kicked the door shut and turned, examining the sigils on the wall again. Hell-sign. He recognized it, even now. That was why he’d come. A drifter’s whisper in a bar, muttered stories of burning shadows running screaming through the streets of Harmony.
Hell-sign.
He grabbed another beer, pistol still in his other hand. Balancing the can against his hip, he popped the top and took a slug. Badilino couldn’t say for sure what he’d come to Harmony looking for. Demons? Ghosts? Maybe just a second chance.
Something laughed. It sounded like wood crackling in a fire. Badilino froze, can at his lips, gun aimed at the floor. He slowly lowered the can and raised the gun.
“I heard you,” he said.
Silence.
Sweat rolled down his blocky features. Outside, the wind rose wild, rattling the houses of Harmony like a child shaking a toy. He felt…tight, like a sausage that had been overcooked. He gulped the beer, trying to find some relief, but it wasn’t happening.
“Damn it,” he said, tossing the can away. It hit the wall, bounced and rolled away. He rubbed his unshaven cheek with the barrel of the pistol. It had been a gift, the pistol, an old Colt Revolver. One of a kind. His skin felt cool where he touched it.
Badilino looked up, eyes narrowing. The sun was setting and the wind had stopped, but the buildings still shook. Harmony trembled beneath his feet, as if something were stampeding through the dusty streets. He ran out onto the porch, pistol cocked. Everything was shaking now. Was it an earthquake--
“No,” he said. “You can’t scare me this way! I’ve seen worse!” he shouted into the teeth of the noise. “I’ve seen it all!”
The lightning struck the building, flinging Badilino out into the street. He hit hard and rolled, fighting to maintain a hold on his pistol. Scraped and bleeding, he staggered upright. The building was burning, all of them in fact. Harmony was burning to the ground around him. His bike lay on its side, thrown away from the explosion even as its owner had been.
The fire was laughing. Every crackle, every pop was giggle, a guffaw, a bellow of joy. A wave of sound and heat washed over him. His stomach lurched and sweat burned his eyes. Something inside him seemed to catch flame as he fell to his knees, clutching at his belly.
“God-I-”
Michael Badilino flung his head back and screamed. The meat of him bubbled and blistered, boiling off of the bone. Blue flames split muscle and skin, burning all that had been human in him away, leaving behind…what?
The skeleton-man, clad in Badilino’s black biker clothes, laughed as it rose to booted feet, fanged jaw wide as peal after peal of inhuman laughter boomed out.
“Zarathos LIVES!” the creature shrieked, taloned fingers clawing at the sky. “Despite everything, ZARATHOS LIVES!”
It lowered its arms, a cold light burning in its otherwise empty eye sockets. Its jaw clacked as its laughter died away. “Yes, I hear you, mortal. Scrabbling around in the deep depths, confused. Frightened. Zarathos feels your fear and finds it sweet, my lovely.”
Zarathos swept the pistol up off the street and examined it. “A pretty toy. A gift, yes? Now it belongs to Zarathos. Everything you once owned belongs to Zarathos now, Michael Badilino. Even your pretty new soul, oh yes.” The demonic skeleton gestured with the pistol.
“I hear your questions and it amuses me to answer…when you and your allies-your brothers-slew my physical form so many months ago, I found myself diminished. Flattened and thinned and scattered, I existed on the cusp of the void. Until,” Zarathos said, the snarling azure flames around its malformed skull blazing higher. “Until I sensed…you.” Zarathos extended its arm, aiming the Colt. “Or, rather, your medallion. My medallion.” It tapped its chest, clawed fingertips shredding the thin shirt, revealing the burning ribcage within. “Just waiting for me to coalesce in. To regain my strength. To wait for the right moment…now. Here. In this cursed place, where whatever frail mystical defenses you might employ would be at their weakest!”
Zarathos cackled, skull thrown back. “And now, now Zarathos will have his vengeance on all of them. All of those so-called Sons of Midnight-especially…Blaze. And you will be my mount, Badilino. I will ride you until the Apocalypse, human. Right over the bodies of those you called allies-”
The pistol twisted in Zarathos’ grasp. The demon stopped laughing abruptly, as its thumb cocked the hammer, one digit around the trigger.
“What-”
Cold, blue hellfire vomited out of the gun barrel and Zarathos screamed as struck the side of its skull. It reeled, swinging the pistol away. The Colt swung back and Zarathos’ finger pulled the trigger again, punching a hole through its leg.
Zarathos screamed again and grabbed its wrist, trying to dislodge the pistol. The barrel tapped against the center of its skull and Zarathos sank to its knees.
“No! How are you-” Zarathos shook its head. “No! No! I won’t! Not again! You can’t-” A bony thumb pulled back the hammer. Zarathos howled in fury and bent low, fists pounding the ground, sending blue flames lashing out to strike the burning buildings.
When the mystical flames faded, Badilino lay sprawled in the street. After a few minutes, he pushed himself up with a groan, every muscle burning with fatigue.
He pulled himself into a sitting position and sat with his eyes closed for a long time, listening to Zarathos’ howls, somewhere in the pit beneath his soul.
Then he smiled.
Badilino stood and chuckled. “How about that? I didn’t place odds on that working as well as it did.” He looked at the pistol, then holstered it. “Blaze was a carnie. Ketch was a dumb kid. Me, I was a cop, a detective. And a good one.” He stretched. “Give me a few weeks in Heaven’s back alleys and I could tell you how God himself thinks. You? You were cake.”
Badilino laughed as Zarathos snarled. There was a question there, beneath the noise. “Yeah. I planned it. Me and a few others. They knew you were still out there--that you’d home in on the shards of the Medallion of Power like a shark smelling blood. You’d come after one of us. I just tipped the odds in my favor. Made myself an appetizing bit of bait. And buddy, you bit.”
He looked around at the burning skeleton of Harmony. His smile faded.
“Now I just gotta figure out what to do with you…”
Mount Avarice
Hell
“Enough!” Ludgate shouted, scrambling back in the red dirt with his hands gripped across his ears. “I can hear no more! Every word brings memories unbidden and unwanted screaming back into my mind! You have awakened me to what I was in life and I damn you for it!”
“A useless curse,” Sallis countered, “all three of us are already damned you so quickly forget.”
“Tell us, then,” Garth requested. “Tell us who you are and why we should care?”
“In life,” Ludgate answered, standing on his haunches as he spoke, “I was a sorcerer. The last of the ancient order of the Druids! Long did I live in pathetic delusions of grandeur, a weakling of a mesmerist that falsely declared himself a master of the mystic arts, until the day I awakened to my true potential. I became one with the Earth, granted control by the Celtic Gods over wood and stone, death and flame! I became what the Christians feared when they stamped out my order, lo all those centuries ago!”
“And what became of you?” Sallis and Garth asked in unison, transfixed by Ludgate’s words.
Anthony fell forward onto his knees, scratching at his ink-stained skin that was marked with the symbols of his faith. “I was betrayed by Satan himself and murdered by a witch named Nekra because I dared to love her. They discarded by burning body in a refuse bin, God damn them! I hate them both, but there is one whom I hate most of all...”
Anthony Ludgate, last of the Druids, stood before the now blazing camp fire, staring into its flickering flame as it transformed in his mind’s eye to the face of his greatest nemesis. “There is no one I hate more than the one I pretended to emulate for so long; no one I hate more than the man who took my place at the temple of the Ancient One; no one I hate more than Stephen Vincent Strange!”
“Bruce.”
Strange stood on the street corner, adjusting his decorated tie and removing the fedora from his head. The cool, blue light shone downwards, down-casting his features with long, drawn shadows; his dark blue trimmed suit was highlighted only by the tie that matched the trim from the Cloak of Levitation. To his left, Namor was wearing a black suit with a turtle neck shirt and, to his right, the Silver Surfer stood wearing a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts and sandals; around his neck a ring of beads that contrasted tightly against his silver skin.
“You look ridiculous.” Banner said, pointing at the Surfer.
“He’s faring better than you, Banner.” Namor uncrossed his arms and took a few steps towards him.
Strange dropped a hand to prevent his approach, which was met with a growl from Namor and a look down the length of his nose.
“You presume much, Strange.”
“You always make so much noise, Namor,” Strange said, making it clear he was the leader and that he was going to talk.
“The Defenders are reforming, Bruce.”
“What’s the threat this time then, Strange? Nameless Ones attacking? Sentient Telephone’s?”
Namor’s brows narrowed and he growled. This time it was the Surfer who put his hand on the Sea Kings shoulder. The Surfer and Namor were always closer to each other than Strange and Banner had been; something about their natures worked well with each other, the Surfer’s calm quelling Namor’s rage.
Strange smiled and clapped a hand on Banners shoulder. He twisted the Doctor around towards the portal he opened with a simple hand gesture. “No, Bruce. We’re starting to fix each other.”
Wong brought the Doctor a cup of tea, placing a tray down on the small table beside Banner. As Strange sipped his cup, the Surfer took a smaller cup of Expresso and Namor simply downed a glass of water.
“Just get on with it.” The King of Atlantis was well known for his impatience and standing around waiting for the others to sip their drinks gently was annoying him.
“Bruce, we want to help you and, upon careful deliberation, Norrin, Namor and I have come up with a solution.”
“Oh thank God, for a moment there I thought we were veering away from predictability,” Bruce scoffed and leaned back in the chair. At some point they were either going to beat him, shoot him into space, or trick him into fighting a demon.
“Pfft. I knew he wouldn’t be appreciative of this, Strange. I’m going back to Atlantis.” Namor turned on his heels and headed for the doors, which slammed close with a wave of Strange’s hand.
“Wait.” Strange finished his tea, whilst Norrin could feel the plumes of anger radiating off Namor. Strange then got to his feet slowly and walked over to Bruce.
“All these years you’ve looked for cures inside yourself, outside yourself and in others. The one place you didn’t look is acceptance, Bruce. That’s all you have to do.”
“All I have to do? What the Hell are you talking about, Strange? Why are we all even gathered here anyway, to tell me to accept the Hulk? That’s not really the reason for the Defenders to gather, is it?”
Namor shook his head and sat down heavily in a chair, looking out the window and away from Bruce. The Scientist annoyed him with his sarcasm, an inability to admit when he was wrong, arrogance…all those things Namor hated in others, but within himself they were parts of his character, parts of himself. Namor was all those things and more because he had to be. There was no call for a weak and compassionate King.
Bruce got up and followed Strange out of the room, leaving Namor and the Surfer alone. Norrin smiled at Namor, who furrowed his brow and huffed. “Idiots,” he said as they waited.
“The reason for the Defenders, Bruce, this time around is no looming threat. There’s no destruction of the world that comes from giant monsters or insane sorcerers this time, Bruce.”
“What then, Strange?” Bruce picked up a small object from one of the shelves, which was quickly taken from his hands by the Doctor and returned to his place.
“The Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, even the Power Pack…they’re all a family and friends and…” Strange trailed off a little, looking at Bruce with a pleading weakness the Scientist had never seen before in Strange.
“You’re Lonely?” Bruce asked, shocked by the revelation. “Dr Stephen Strange, Lord High Muckity Muck of Magics is lonely, so he called together HIS super team that used to defend the world between beating each other up because he doesn’t have any friends?”
“Bruce, it’s not quite...”
“You Stupid Bastard!” Bruce clapped his hands together and shook his head. “Always on your terms, isn’t it?” He shoved Strange in the chest and took a few steps away from him, running his hands through his hair. “You’re some godamned mysterious guy, aren’t you, Strange? Floating around on magicial stilts and looking down at the rest of us, and now you call us all together on a whim because you don’t have any friends?”
There was a long pause as Strange stared at the ground before finally looking up at Bruce and removing his hands from his pockets. “None of us have any friends, Bruce. We’ve only got each other.” He extended his hand to the scientist, who took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling.
“Is Mephisto going to pop up if I take your hand?”
“No, but if it makes you feel better, it’s an alien invasion that brought the group together.”
“It doesn’t.”
“That’s good, because that was a lie.”
“Why did you come, Namor?” the Surfer asked, standing over the sea king and unbuttoning the Hawaiian shirt to reveal his silver body.
“What do you mean, Norrin?” Namor looked up.
“You’re the King of Atlantis, you have everything you want there, Namor. Why come back to the surface world to be part of this? Strange told me why he wanted me to come here, but you...I would have thought you would have declined. You’re brash, confrontational and arrogant.”
As Strange walked through the door with Bruce, the Surfer was propelled through the wall by Namor’s fist, with the fish king hurtling through the wall after him only to get shot back through the hastily made opening with an energy burst released from the Surfer’s open palm.
“I AM KING OF ATLANTIS! THEY’RE BELOVED SOVERGIN! I NEED NO REASON TO BE ABOVE THE WAVES ANYMORE THAN YOU NEED TO BE TRAVELLING THE STARS, SURFER. IMPERIOUS REX!” The fuming king rose to his feet as the Surfer pulled himself from the hole with an apologetic roll of his shoulders.
“Namor.” Strange pointed towards him, but the king simply bore his chest at the man and turned his back.
“...Go to your Hell, Strange.” Namor threw the door open and stormed out of the Sanctum. Strange cast a disapproving look at Norrin and rubbed his forehead gently. Bruce smiled softly and sat down heavily, picking up a glass of root beer that Wong had supplied earlier.
“Work on those people skills, Norrin.” Bruce put his feet up on the table and beamed a huge smile at Strange.
“Acceptance, indeed.” Strange muttered under his breath.
“Namor.” Bruce rubbed the back of his head as he walked out onto the street after the Sea King, a T-Shirt clung to his malnourished body and jeans hung from his skinny legs.
“What do you want, Surface Dweller?”
“We want to help you.” Strange and Norrin came out behind Bruce and they all stood together, almost echoing the scene where they met Banner earlier.
“Help me? You can’t even help yourselves?”
“That’s the problem, Namor. We can’t. That’s the real reason for the Defenders,” Strange started. He looked at the ground as Banner and Norrin watched. “We’re all missing something, Namor. We want to help you find Marrina. Bruce, we want to help you control the Hulk, Norrin, we want to give you a place to live and love, and I hope, that you want to help me...get over Clea. Will you help me and, more importantly, each other?”
“Strange...you would help me find my wife?”
“We all would,” replied the Surfer.
The quartet were interrupted by explosions from a distance, getting increasingly closer as the form of someone familiar to them shot through the air, red cape splayed out behind him as the jet pack underneath it propelled him forwards.
“Guys!” he yelled, his jet pack cutting out and allowing the battered and torn hero to land awkwardly on the balls of his feet and fall onto his front. On his hands and knees he looked up at the other Defenders and pulled his mask off, revealing his face, full of hope despite the fact it was bloodied and swollen.
“I’m so glad you’re back together...” he said before passing out face first into the pavement below. Strange rushed over to him, kneeling down and feeling his pulse, before pushing him into the recovery position.
“We’re not back together,” Banner replied quickly, met with a glare from Norrin
Banners comment was met with a glow of light that blinded him, as well as the others. Only Norrin stood unaffected; he’d seen the glare of suns up close and this was nothing. She touched down and lifted her hand up, the crystal now embedded in her flesh. The blue full-face mask gave none of her emotions away as she simply pointed towards the four of them.
“Move out the way or find yourself annihilated.”
Mount Avarice
Hell
Druid’s eyes shot open, a hacking cough tearing its way free from his throat as he lay convulsing on Hell’s soul. Neither Sallis nor Garth made any attempt to see to their companion, merely watching as Ludgate finished his spastic episode. “I saw,” he stammered, “I saw my enemy and the allies he has surrounded himself with. How is such a thing possible?”
“You have tapped into the power of our curse,” Simon answered. “The power of the Druids has not abandoned you after death. You were able to access the Earthly realm through the bodies and souls of Sallis and I.”
“To what purpose?” Anthony asked.
No answer came from either man, both simply staring ahead into the fire. Ludgate watched as a figure slowly emerged from the shadows behind them, lithe feminine arms wrapping tenderly around their shoulders. The beautiful seductress poured herself out of the dark, taking a seat between Sallis and Garth with a smile painted on her crimson lips. She wore no clothes, allowing the naked majesty of her sinfully sculpted body to be displayed. She would have been the perfect woman had it not been for the horns protruding from her head and the cloven hooves extended from her knees.
“Anthony, my dearest,” the hostess of the meeting greeted him with a hiss, “do you know who I am?”
“You are the one who freed me from my demonic enslavement and commanded me to advance up the mountain,” Druid admitted, “yet you remind me of Satan himself.”
“I am Satana,” she explained, “the Devil’s blood sister. That gives me the power of regency here, Anthony, and through that power I offer you an opportunity to be granted your desire.”
Ludgate was enthralled, unable to do anything but hang on the succubus’ every word.
“I can return you to life,” she said with a pursing of her lips, “but you must aide me in return. Let me tell you, Anthony Druid; let me tell you the nightmarish story of the Darkhold…”
Prague
It was raining outside and the bell over the door made a strangled sound. Udo Steyr, proprieter and manager of the tiny off-angle bookstore, looked up from his newspaper and then back down. A man in a long coat and soaking wet hoodie slunk into the stacks. Steyr took a sip of lukewarm coffee and continued to read.
“Where is it?”
Steyr looked up from his coffee. He peered nearsightedly at the man who’d just entered and was now suddenly looming in front of him. “What?” he said. He--the man--had moved so quietly--
A hand shot forward, pale with dark, worm-like veins crawling across its surface. Long, filthy nails pricked Steyr’s neck and he yelped as he was yanked forward across the counter, his coffee splashing into his lap. A face to match the hand glared at him out of the depths of the hood. A mouth bristling with needle teeth opened and a foul odor washed over Steyr.
“Where. Is. It?” the pale man asked again.
“W-what? W-hat are you looking for?” Steyr asked, his voice cracking. Red eyes bored into Steyr’s own muddy brown pair.
“What do you think an individual such as myself would be looking for?” the pale man hissed, his blazing orbs narrowed to slits. “The page.”
Steyr stopped struggling. “Oh,” he said, softly. He licked his lips. “I-”
“Do not make me ask you again.”
“I-if you can pay, I-I’ll happily--”
“Of course,” the pale man said, dropping a handful of crumpled, filthy Euro on the counter. “That should cover it.”
“I--” Steyr began. He found himself in the air, dangling from the pale man’s hand. He clawed at the iron fingers, trying to break his attacker’s hold.
“I am in no mood to bargain,” the pale man said, biting the end of the last word. His flat, wide flanged nose flared, as if taking in Steyr’s scent. “Give me THE PAGE!”
Steyr flew backwards and slammed into the wall behind the counter. He screamed and crumpled to the floor. Desperately, he tried to stand but his body wasn’t working right. The pale man clambered onto the counter and squatted, looking for all the world like an obscene gargoyle.
“Don’t get up. I’ll collect it myself,” the pale man said. “Simply point me in the right direction.”
Later
The sky was overcast, but his skin still itched abominably.
Michael Morbius, late of Greece, late of the United States and late of what could be recognizably called life, hurried through the rain, the ancient scroll he’d confiscated from Steyr protected from the weather inside his coat. The page felt warm, like living skin next to his own pallid, chill flesh and a tingle spread through him. Equal parts fear, revulsion, excitement and hope, he knew.
He reached inside his coat and trailed his long fingers across the paper. It seemed to stretch at his touch, the frayed ends curling around his fingertips like the tail of a cat. He withdrew his hand with a shudder.
Morbius had possessed such a page once before and it had led to nothing but pain and terror. But then, he knew all about that, didn’t he?
Morbius pushed strands of greasy hair out of his face and hunched his shoulders, bulling through the weather. Oh yes, he knew all about such things. Had he not been born…well, reborn, rather…in pain? The pain of his blood, his human blood, boiling away into something else, some viscous fluid that resisted the normal definition of life. His teeth clacked together as he resisted a snarl.
He’d been reborn out of a benighted attempt to stave off death; reborn as something that brought death. Morbius stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for traffic to clear so that he could cross the street. He could have flown, but like everywhere these days, Prague abounded with colorfully costumed fools and his face was well known in those circles, thanks to a history of idiotic scuffles with interfering busybodies. Interpol, too, had begun dogging his tracks anew. Bloodless bodies attracted a certain type of attention from a certain type of people. Morbius tilted his head up, letting the rain splash down onto his face.
“What did I do to deserve this?” he said, to no one in particular. “All of it? Any of it?”
The page in his coat rustled and he looked down, slapping at it instinctively. That it should come to this--
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” Morbius said, in English, to an old man standing beside him. The man blanched and crossed the street quickly as the light changed. Morbius smiled.
He was insane, of course, and there was little use in denying it. Years of predation upon a usually unsuspecting populace, even those members of it who were rather less than saintly, had a rusting effect on his moral compass. He valued human life the way a child valued a Coca-Cola; wonderful while he drained it, but once the can was empty it could be tossed aside with ease. And often was.
Thinking of it caused his desire to flare. He was hungry all of the time now. Hungry? Thirsty? Which was it? The thought fluttered against the inside of his skull like a moth and he groaned, licking his lips. People pushed and shoved around him, carrying him to the opposite side of the street, like so many cattle in a train car.
The smell of them. God--
He put his hands over his face, trying to block it out. Block everything out. It was a futile attempt. He had never been able to do it, never been able to resist--
He clapped a hand to his coat. Just to make sure. The page held the answer. The cure.
He let a snarl slip loose, a tiger’s triumphant rumble. A woman shied away from him and her sudden movement brought him back to himself. He leaned against the crosswalk signal and rubbed his face, trying to smooth some veneer of humanity back into it. When he opened his eyes again, demons were watching him from across the street.
Morbius sucked in a breath. “What--”
No. Not demons. Masks. Demon masks. In his coat, the page stretched, like a cat preparing to pounce. Morbius stepped back, away from the street. The signal changed again and they flowed through the crowd towards him. Long coats and rain hoods over contorted, grotesque masks. People were pushed aside, sent stumbling, as the demons moved faster, pulling weapons from beneath their coats. Knives glittered in the rain.
Morbius hissed and people scattered, screaming. He whirled and spun, leaping towards the building behind him. His fingers dug into the brick and stone and he climbed cockroach-swift.
He had no idea who they were, but he had a suspicion, an inkling of an idea of a theory and he had no time for their games. Not when he was finally so close to being finished with it all. With the whole of the nightmare his life had become in the decade since Dr. Michael Morbius had become Morbius, the Living Vampire.
Scaling the building, he ignored the panicked cries of the citizens below. He ignored the first shot from the pistol down below, as well. The second shot was harder, as it blistered across his vertebrae. Morbius jerked, reeling away from the wall, hands flying instinctively to his back.
Another bullet caught him in the meat of his thigh and he spun, plucked from the wall. He fell, twisting, clawing at the air, and slammed into the top of one of the boxy family cars that choked the streets of Europe. Metal bent and split, glass shattering as Morbius rolled off onto the street.
Feet splashed towards him. He could hear the breath whistling in and out of their lungs as they ran. With a growl, Morbius uncurled, a clawed hand latching into flesh and continuing upwards, sending a red spray into the falling curtain of rain. One of the demons toppled, a knife falling from nerveless fingers.
Morbius spun, grabbing wrists. He held the masked man in place for a moment, savoring the look of panic that flared in the eyes under the gargoyle brows. Then, with a grunt, he pulled the would-be assassin in half like a wishbone. Blood gouted and he opened his mouth, tongue unfurling to catch every drop.
Pain flared in his side and he staggered. He looked down at the knife jutting from beneath his ribs, then up at the masked man. “You--”
Bang.
The bullet took Morbius just below the jaw, tearing a hole in his cheek. He fell backwards, vision blurring.
Bang.
Another shot. He felt his body heave in response, but no pain. No pain, lying in the rain.
Morbius’ eyes fluttered. Hands rifled through his clothing. He tried to stop them, but he couldn’t move his arms. Couldn’t move anything.
Demons looked down at him, as if from a distance.
“Is he--” one said, in German.
“No, but he will be,” the other replied. He raised his pistol. Morbius closed his eyes.
Bang.
Budapest
Later
“They have it.”
The masked men sat around a stone table, ostensibly equals. The one who’d spoken smiled.
“Are you certain, DeGuzman?”
“Oh yes.” DeGuzman stroked the table idly, as if clearing invisible specks of dust. He looked up, his crimson demon mask shining wetly in the light of the torches that lined the room. “Despite a minor obstacle…”
“How minor?”
“It is of little consequence,” DeGuzman said. “The page is ours and, with it, the Lord of the Undead.” He laid his hands flat on the table and leaned forward. “This is a new day, my friends. A new day for the Darkholders.”
“So you say, DeGuzman,” one of the others said, “but the Book is still in pieces, scattered to the four corners of this miserable globe.”
“Easily rectified.” DeGuzman waved a hand. He was smiling beneath his mask. “Our agents are already hunting down those who have had the least bit of contact with the Darkhold--”
“What purpose does that serve?” a woman snapped. DeGuzman paused and looked at her. He swept his gaze around the table.
“Civil tongues, please.”
“Get on with it, DeGuzman.”
“It serves to clear the playing field.” DeGuzman leaned back. “Once the pawns have been stripped away, we can concentrate on the other pieces.”
“Pieces?”
“I know we are an insular bunch, but honestly, did you think we were the only group of individuals with aims on the soul of the world?” DeGuzman spread his hands. “It doesn’t matter though. Soon enough…we will be.”
Ludgate sat in Zen contemplation following the conclusion of Satana’s story-spell, her words having been the final rite of the curse-breaker she had so carefully wove. The stories of the four strangers had marked themselves on Anthony’s ashen flesh, inscribed in branded sigils and words in languages long forgotten and lost to the ages. His preparation had been completed and the end of the beginning was in sight.
“You are ready to walk the world of Man once more,” Satana said. In response to her unspoken commands, Sallis and Garth moved along with her to form three points of a triangle around the crackling bonfire. “Through the power of your ancestors, the bodies of these two damned souls shall remake you on the Earthly Realm.
“Of flesh,” she said with a nod toward Simon Garth, whose body roamed the world as a Zombie.
“Of wood,” she said with a nod toward Ted Sallis, whose body roamed the world as the Man-Thing.
“And of sin,” she ended with a hand running down the crease between her breasts. “By decree of Hell’s Royal Family do I grant you your redemption from this infernal place. Step into the fire Anthony Ludgate, last of the Druids, and tear your way through the dimension womb to be reborn of skin and plant. Its closing in time Hell; you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
“What is my mission?” he asked before stepping into the roaring flame.
“I will join you on Earth shortly,” Satana advised. “We will kill and fuck and bathe in the blood of all who stand against us.”
“Then I enter with perfect love and perfect trust,” the Druid stated as the fire exploded, consuming him with hellflame and sorcery. As he burned in effigy, the spirits of Sallis and Garth so too burned, spontaneously combusting as their souls died in order for Ludgate to live once more. Their souls, connected to their reanimated bodies on Earth, were the fuel that drove the engine of Satana’s spell.
Then the flame snuffed, breaking down into a mere flicker of cinders and ash that desperately attempted to retain its life. Only Satana remained at the campsite and, with a brush of her hoof she stamped out the last embers. She had taken the first step necessary for her plan, now she only hoped she could control her puppet long enough to prevent the fall of everything she held dear.
Satana Hellstrom was a demon, yes, but this time her actions were driven not by evil…but by her conscience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
To Be Continued In:
· The Defenders, by Ed Ainsworth
· Druid, by Chris Munn
· The Midnight Sons, by Josh Reynolds
· Nightstalkers, by Jan Oudshoorn
Previous Issue | Next Issue