The Ultimate X-Men (27 page)

THE UlTIHATf X-HEH

was that they were very easy to track by smell, especially when they were wet.

The trail led away from the road, through the academy grounds, and into the back country. They were headed up a steep grade paralleling a stream when Jean glanced back over her shoulder and pointed. Visible through the trees, parked next to a side road, was the light green van.

Logan picked up his pace, and trusted that Jean would keep time. As they rounded the next bend, the trail crossed from one side of the ravine to the other, via an arched concrete bridge that soared high over the rocky stream.

“It’s happening,” Jean cried.

On the center of the bridge Logan could see three figures: two human and one canine. As they came closer, it became apparent that the dog was trying to defend its fallen master from the Snowman. It was a battie as brave as it was hopeless. Only the dog’s speed kept it from being cut to ribbons. That was a lesson Wolverine took careful note of as he broke into a full sprint.

Logan,
he heard her in his thoughts,
while you attack on the physical plane, I’m going to attempt to contact the mutant by deep probe. There may be a way we can help you from inside, or at least learn something useful.

He didn’t even think,
Be careful.
The time for care was past. This was war.

Logan ran onto the bridge just in time. The dog was withdrawing in defeat, bleeding from several seemingly minor cuts. The dog hunched down near the railing where his master had fallen. The man seemed disoriented, if unhurt. Logan placed himself between the killer and his intended victim, but kept his distance.

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They danced a dance of death for a moment, then the Snowman struck. Logan stepped just outside the knife’s arc, then replied with a thrust of his own, aiming not for the vitals or limbs, but for the eyes. As always, the Snowman’s bioelectric field protected him from the blow, but he still instinctively pulled back, trying to protect his face.

Made you jump,
thought Logan. It was a small victory, but he’d settle for anything at this point. The strike also had an unanticipated secondary effect. The green fire lingered over the Snowman’s face, interfering with his vision.

WJiile he’s confused, Logan, I’m going in .. .

Then things went terribly wrong. Jean’s psyche was suddenly sucked inside the Snowman, and, through their contact, a part of Logan as well.

It was a strange sensation, to see his physical self still doing battle with the Snowman, to still be a part of that, and yet to exist on this inner plane as well.

He and Jean were falling, though he had no fear of it. They were falling down a long shaft, like the vent of a deep volcano. He could see a shrinking circle of blue sky, wispy with cloud, far above, dwindling to only a spot as they reached the bottom. He had no memory of stopping, and yet they were there.

As he looked around the dark, fog shrouded plane, he saw four others besides Jean and himself standing there. One of them, a thin teenage boy with dishwater-blond hair, stepped forward. The symbiont, Logan knew.

“You came,” the symbiont said, his eyes wide with wonder. “Tommy said you’d come, but I didn’t believe .him.”

A flash of pain pulled Logan back into the part of his consciousness existing in the physical plane. The batde had

ItlE UlTlflATE X-HEII

gotten close and bloody while his attention was elsewhere, and, from his current perspective, seemed to move in slow motion. Fury and confusion marked the Snowman’s face as he slashed at Logan, flashes of green fire illuminating his face in stark shadows.

A spray of blood arched through the air, his own, Logan realized.
Got to pull back, get room to move.
As he did, he saw Jean standing at the end of the bridge, frozen in midstride, the blind man still propped against the railing, and the Snowman, moving toward him. Logan moved to protect the helpless man.

Snap.
He was back on the astral plane. Jean emerged from the shadows, holding the hand of a young black boy of about nine. “This is Tommy,” she said. “He wants to help us end the killing.”

The boy’s eyes were large and gende, and it was hard to believe that he was part of the Snowman. He looked up at Logan and nodded sadly. “We done some bad things, mister. Got to make it stop. That’s why I brought your lady friend to help our friend Roger,” he pointed at the symbiont, “and you, Mr. Wolverine, to help fight our Snow-beast.”

The nameless old woman glanced at Logan contemptuously, then turned her back on him. Three aspects of the Snowman, Jean had said. Tommy was one, this woman another, and the third . . . Something roared behind him. He turned to face a child’s nightmare: a buffalo sized lion made of soiled velvet drapery fabric and old buttons, held together with crude hand stitchery, its back crusted with fallen snow, as though it had just shambled out of a snowbank. Despite its bulk, it moved with easy grace, its eyes glowed

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with green fire, and when it roared, it revealed a maw studded with very real teeth.

This was it, the killer’s dark soul, the inner beast. Logan knew it well, knew what could happen if it were set loose.

Tommy stepped forward, challenging the beast. “Got to stop it! Got to stop the killing, Snowbeast! Got to make it end!”

“Nooooo
,” the Snowbeast roared, brushing the boy aside with his paw. “
Kill the weak! Kill the weak!”
He turned toward Roger, the symbiont. ‘
‘Kill—the outsider?”

More pain, as his claws locked with the killer’s knives and the blades slid down to bite into his knuckles.
Too close. Too close again.
He shoved the Snowman backward, stepping back himself.

He was bleeding from a dozen places, none too serious, but the green energy was sapping his strength, and impeding his healing. He needed the breather.

The Snowman leaned back against the bridge rail, casually wiping a little saliva from the corner of his mouth. He looked at Logan and laughed. Then, too quickly for Logan to act, he grabbed the terrified blind man by his collar, pulled him up onto the bridge railing, and climbed up after him.

The concrete railing was only four or five inches wide and covered with snow. Using strength that could only have been granted by his symbiosis, the Snowman held the struggling man out over the drop.

“No!”
cried Tommy. The Snowbeast lumbered toward the young mutant. Logan popped his claws, relieved that they worked here as well as the real world, plunging his right claws into the Snowbeast’s side, ripping down in a long

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stroke. But there was no blood, just more of the green fire, spewing out, burning where it touched.

“Tommy,” urged Jean, “you have to help us.”

The boy just sat watching the battie, arms curled around his knees. “Can’t do nothing without Auntie.” He gestured at the old woman. “Her and me could outvote the Snow-beast, but she won’t vote. She don’t care. It’s always that way.”

Logan leapt and rolled beyond the Snowbeast’s claws. “We need help, Red, or the man’s gonna die. What about Blondie there?” He nodded toward the young symbiont before having to fend off another of the Snowbeast’s attacks.

Roger shook his head. “I can’t control his powers. I’ve tried, but I
can’t.”

“Then,” said Jean, “control
yours.
I’ll help you see your true nature.” She waved her hand toward the three aspects of the Snowman. “You have the ability to enhance your host, compensate for his shortcomings, to make him better at what he is. But you didn’t understand that when you were suddenly cast into this poor shattered creature. You made him a better killer, and that’s all, but Roger, you can make him whole.”

The Snowbeast stopped for a moment, looking up in response to the words, then redoubled his attack on Logan.

“No,” said Roger, “I don’t know how.”

“I’ll help you,” said Jean.

Some part of Logan could see the Snowman’s fingers loosening from the man’s collar, even as the Snowbeast landed on top of his chest, huge jaws snapping shut just short of his throat.

II (MAGES

“Now would be a good time,” he growled, freeing an arm to fend off another bite.

Then the Snow'beast was screaming, joining the chorus of Tommy and the old woman, with Jean, and with the mutant teenager, and finally with Logan himself, an animal howl rising from deep in his throat.

The weight lifted from Logan’s body as the Snowbeast and his other aspects were drawn together into a boiling ball of green anger and rage. Then the color warmed, to yellow, and then orange, and the ball coalesced into a single figure, the silver-haired man they had called the Snowman.

Suddenly, Logan was back in the real world. The Snowman still stood on the railing, a look of growing realization and horror on his face. In the corner of his vision, Logan saw Jean stagger from the psychic backlash of returning to her own body.

“Help me,” the blind man croaked, and the Snowman seemed to notice for the first time the helpless victim dangling from his hand. He placed the man’s feet back on the railing, but did not release him.

“What have we done?” asked the Snowman. “What have
I
done?” The Snowman turned his face toward the bright sky, the wind plucking at his short white hair.

“Justice,” he whispered, then pushed the man back onto the bridge, straight into Logan’s arms. Days later, Logan would still be wondering if that move, or what followed, was intentional, for just then, the Snowman’s feet slid from the icy railing and he tumbled to the sharp rocks waiting below.

There was a wet crunch, and then silence.

The injured dog stepped fox-ward to join his master, and

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Logan left them to comfort each other. He glanced over the rail at the broken body. The sharp angle of the neck left no doubt that the Snowman was finally dead.

Jean walked slowly toward him across the bridge. “Oh, Logan, it’s terrible. Once he was psychically healed, the Snowman couldn’t live with what he’d done.”

“Who could, darlin’? The kid?”

She shook her head and sniffed. “Gone, I think. That makes two lives sacrificed today.”

He put his hand on her arm. “And two saved. Prob’ly more. You did good.”

But Jean drew away, turning her attention to the fallen man. She knelt next to him, picking his dark glasses up from where they’d fallen in the snow.

He moaned softly, and his eyelids fluttered. The dog whined and licked his face. He chuckled softly and started to push the animal away. Then his eyes opened, “You’re hurt,” he said to the dog. He gingerly explored the dog’s injuries with his fingers, but there was more than that. “You can see!” she exclaimed.

“I can see,” the man parroted flatly. He repeated the words with more emotion, like an infant trying his second spoonful of ice cream. “I can see. I can’t believe it.” He climbed unsteadily to his feet, refusing Jean’s offer of the glasses. He picked up his white cane, perhaps merely as a familiar comfort, since he seemed at a loss as to what to do with it.

Logan watched as the man walked to the far railing, leaning over to look down at the body. Jean followed the man, taking his arm to steady him. “Are you all right?” “We’re better now—both of us.” He nodded downward.

HOSTAOtS

“Even he was better in the end.” He turned and smiled. “Thank you, Jean, for everything.”

“I don’t know your name,” she said.

“My name is Roger Besda.
Our
name is Roger.” He chuckled. “A nice coincidence, isn’t it?”

Jean laughed, squeezing Roger’s hands.

Logan drifted back, feeling an outsider in this moment of warmth and renewal. He and Jean could never be together. He knew that now. He’d battied the beast today, knowing he could never win. That was how it would ever be.

He stood at the far end of the bridge, looking out into the wild places beyond. That was where his destiny lay, with the inner-beast, and the battle that he must ever fight— alone.

OUT Of riACt

Dave Smeds

Illustration by Brent Anderson

nank McCoy knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite pin it down. He glanced at his shoes, brushed a hand across his white linen smock, and lifted his pen off the lined page of the patient medical file in front of him. He stared at the sentence he’d just written, suddenly uncertain that the handwriting was his.

“Is something wrong, Dr. McCoy?”

He turned to the patient on the exam table. The unfamiliarity faded. Of course. Mrs. Wilson. Age forty-one. He’d just removed a mole from her shoulder for a biopsy.

“Not to worry. As I said, your body is positively brimming with puissance and vitality,” he said in his most soothing tone. “My apologies. I was thinking of something entirely unrelated to your visit.”

Mrs. Wilson settled back into the relief of a person who has just been told the growth she feared was malignant is surely nothing of the kind. She fastened the last button of her blouse and, at the doctor’s reassuring gesture, exited the exam room.