IN A tunnel deep beneath the Hellfire Club, Emma Frost leaned against the wall, running a well-manicured finger down the screen of her phone. She smiled as a series of security-cam feeds scrolled past. Each of the club’s private rooms was equipped with a hidden camera—and those cameras were capturing some very interesting footage.
She lowered the phone and looked down. A trickle of rainwater had seeped into the narrow corridor, pooling and rising up on the stone floor. She lifted her boot, grimacing in distaste as her glove touched the muck.
“Getting your hands dirty?”
Sebastian Shaw emerged from a hidden passageway, entering the tunnel with the grace of a tiger. The large stone slid back into place behind him.
“When I must,” she replied. She saw his torn pants, and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been down in the mud yourself.”
“The weather witch got me,” he said, brushing off his shoulder. “But of course, you already know that.”
“We’ve captured some useful video,” she said, holding up her phone. “Should provide months’ worth of… leverage… over certain Washington luminaries.”
“Thank our Latverian business partners for that idea. The bad news is, I’m afraid the X-Men are lost to us.” He paused. “At least we can blame the chaos on them. When word gets out that they disrupted our celebration, they’ll be branded as international terrorists. ‘Worse than Hydra…’ That has a ring to it.”
“And Wyngarde?”
“His little toy is about to explode in his face. I think the ‘Mastermind’ will have his hands full for a while.” He came up behind her, placed a hand around her waist. “But you know that, too.” He kissed her neck, tightening his grip.
“Sebastian,” she said. “Something is troubling you.”
He said nothing. Nuzzled his nose into her neck.
“You know you can’t hide things from me,” she said.
“No.” His voice sounded uncharacteristically vulnerable. “But you hide a great deal from me.”
She smiled again. Reached up and stroked his thick hair with a white-gloved hand. “I wish I could feel you more,” he continued. “Like—”
“Like Scott Summers and Jean Grey?”
He paused, then nodded.
“No you don’t,” she whispered. “Trust me, you don’t wish that at all.”
“Trust you,” he mused, as if the idea had never occurred to him before.
Such a child, she thought. A boy playing at men’s games—but then, aren’t they all? “Well,” she said, starting off down the corridor, “we’d better see what’s left of Leland and—”
“Emma,” he called.
She turned. He hadn’t moved. Shaw stood in the narrow hallway, his shoes nearly submerged in the rising water.
“The X-Men,” he continued. “Did you help them escape?”
All at once, the air seemed to change. They faced each other, wary and tense, like the predators they were. Lives, nations, even worlds seemed to hang in the balance, thick and shrouded in the moist air.
Then Emma’s expression softened. She moved close to Shaw and touched his chest. Pressed her cheek to his and waited, patiently, until he reached out and pulled her closer.
“Darling,” she whispered. “You know I belong only to you.”
His hand trembled on her back. He pulled away, nodded, and smiled.
“Come,” he said, starting off toward the surface. “There’s much to be done.”
She smirked, twirled the phone in her hand, and followed.
* * *
AS THE hidden elevator slid to a stop, Cyclops hissed in a breath. I’m about to step out into the main hall in full costume, he realized. Might as well paint a target on my back—especially with Wyngarde still on the loose. Yet there was no time to concoct another plan. His civilian clothes were long gone, and Jean’s psychic link with him was broken.
He had to find her fast.
The door slid open—and his eyes went wide behind his visor. The main hall looked as if a bomb had struck it. Tables lay overturned, bars had been smashed and plundered for bottles. Lights flickered, painting the scene with a chaotic strobe effect. Drunken women laughed as they picked their way through the broken glass. Men sat on the floor in small groups, crying and muttering over whiskey bottles.
On the far side of the central staircase, thick smoke rose up from behind an improvised fortress of overturned tables. Cyclops moved in that direction, keeping low. A trio of laughing drunks nearly stumbled into him, oblivious to his presence.
Behind the tables, two men and two women sat cross-legged on the floor. The men were shirtless; all four wore matching tribal smears on their faces. They’d lit a fire in a pile of tablecloths and chair legs, and built a makeshift spit out of a centuries-old sword. One of the women was turning the sword-spit, roasting a large pig. Her eyes followed the gray smoke as it wafted up toward the high ceiling.
The lights flickered again. Cyclops shook his head, feeling as if he was in a dream.
“So much for smoke detectors,” he murmured.
The woman looked up in response—and screamed. She pointed at him and scrambled backward, dropping the sword. The heavy pig crashed into the fire, throwing up sparks.
“Hey, hey…” Cyclops began.
The two men grabbed the woman protectively. The other woman looked over at Cyclops and started yelling.
“It’s all right!” Cyclops said. “I’m just…”
The woman’s screams were incomprehensible gibberish. Her companions joined in, pointing fearfully at him. A passing drunk paused, eyes wide, then fled in terror.
What’s going on? Cyclops wondered. Why are they all afraid of me?
The lights flickered once more, then went dark. Instantly the room dissolved into chaos. He could hear glass breaking, doors crashing open. People ran, screaming, in all directions. The only light came from the smoldering, dying cookfire on the floor.
A thick hand grabbed hold of his shoulder, pulled him into an alcove along the wall. He whirled, eyes flashing—then stopped.
“Cyke,” Wolverine said. “We gotta stop meetin’ like this.”
“Logan.” Cyclops pressed himself against the wall. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“One word: Mastermind,” Logan said. “He made all those people see you blasting the room with your eye-beams. I caught a quick glimpse of him, then he did his cheap disappearing act again. Don’t know where he’s hiding now.”
Cyclops nodded. He looked past Logan at the shadowy guests, visible now as silhouettes running wild in the darkness.
“I saw it, too,” Wolverine continued. “Saw you zap that gal, knock her right into the fire. Would have believed it myself, ’cept you didn’t smell right.”
“Logan.” Cyclops paused, gathered his breath. “I don’t know if I’ve ever said this before, but thanks.”
Logan turned away.
“What?” Cyclops asked. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Wolverine growled. “Least my little blackout should cover our escape.”
“Right, the thing with the sewers. I forgot.” Cyclops paused, thinking. “Get the others out of here, okay? I’ll find Mastermind. And Jean.”
Logan hesitated. Something in his expression sent a chill up Cyclops’s spine.
“What?” Cyclops asked. “Have you seen her?”
“No. Not since…” Logan paused. “Listen, there’s somethin’ I gotta tell you.”
“It’ll have to wait.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Logan! There’s no time. Jean’s over the edge… she’s dangerous. I’m worried about her, but I’m also worried about what she might do.”
A chandelier crashed down in the darkness. People scurried away, laughing and screaming. Half their voices still sounded panicked; the other half seemed to have decided it was all some elaborate, drunken game.
“Get Storm and the others, take them to the skyship. I’ll call you as soon as I find Jean. I… I know how you feel about her.”
“And I know how she feels about you.”
There was something odd in his voice, something Cyclops couldn’t read. It wasn’t just concern, or even unrequited love. This was something deeper, darker.
“What?” Cyclops asked.
Logan shook his head, dismissing the question, and clapped Cyclops on the back. “Go get our girl,” he said.
Cyclops frowned, nodded, and ran for the staircase.
* * *
JASON WYNGARDE entered the library.
Jean stood motionless, a shadow among shadows, her face supernally calm. The lights had gone out ten minutes before, leaving only the ambient glow from outside. But even in bright daylight, he wouldn’t have seen her. Her power, her ever-growing telepathic prowess, concealed her from all eyes.
She was terrified, a fear that reached to her very core. But that would have to wait. All that mattered now was the Phoenix’s rage.
You’re no telepath, Jason, she thought, keeping her mind carefully shielded. How did you plant yourself so deeply in my mind? She tried to push him away, to banish his vile, invading thoughts. But their bond, forged through deceit and illusion, was too strong.
Hellfire Club failures losers beneath me
Lost Jean lost my link to her
How? Anticipated every contingency
Must escape retreat regroup
His surface thoughts were vile enough—petty hatreds, a small man’s plans for power and influence. But the rage, the resentment that lay beneath, made her cringe.
X-Men hate X-Men make the world hate them
Leland Pierce Shaw hate them too hate them more
Rich born rich they buy women like slaves
He stood facing the wall, clenching and unclenching his fists, raw contempt and misogyny leaking from his mind. As the psychic flow intensified, she embraced his dark thoughts. Invited them in, allowed them to stoke the fires within her.
Kill women love women why don’t they love me
All my life all women selfish selfish hate them
Force them make them see make them feel my pain
I am the master Mastermind Jean Grey
Jean Grey love her hate her bend her to my will
Secrets know her secrets know all their secrets
Master master master I AM THE MASTERMIND
“Jason,” she said aloud.
He turned in the dark. “Jean!”
“Surprised, Mastermind? You’re not the only one who can create illusions.” A corona of flame appeared at her mental command, illuminating them both. “Perhaps women don’t love you because you think of them as less than human.” She smiled, took a step toward him. “Did that ever cross your mind?”
He staggered back, toward a bookcase.
“Why are you here?”
His fear pulled her closer. It was intoxicating. She stepped past him, made a show of picking up a book at random. Her eyebrow rose as she noticed the title: Magick Without Tears, by Aleister Crowley.
“I knew where you’d go. I know all about you,” she answered. “You made a mistake, Jason. On the astral plane.” She flipped pages, not looking at him. “You slew the man I loved—truly loved—before my eyes.”
He glanced left to right. She didn’t need telepathy to read his thoughts.
“Instead of severing the connection to my former life,” she continued, “that was like a bucket of ice water in my face. You thought you’d enslave me forever, but instead you shocked me awake.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I compensated for that reaction. My power, combined with your own telepathy—it should have—”
“Your power is nothing.”
She reached out, let loose a mental force bolt, and blasted him across the room. He crashed into a mirror, shattering it, and slumped to the ground in a pile of broken glass.
Her flame burned brighter, hotter. It rose up, shimmering and shifting, taking on its customary shape. But the Phoenix was wilder now, more savage. It cried out, wings reaching desperately for the sky. It was changing, growing, just as she herself was. Learning, seeking, evolving.
Mutating.
“Foolish man.” She strode toward Wyngarde. “Have you any idea what you’ve done? The forces you’ve set in motion?”
He reached up, dazed, from the floor.
“No,” he gasped. “No more.”
“You came to me at my most vulnerable. How? How did you know where to find me? You’re not a telepath—just a cheap illusionist.”
“White Queen,” he said, holding out a hand to ward her off. “She scouted you out… told me all about you. When you thought… other X-Men had died, in Antarctica… we seized our chance.”
“You sabotaged the ship I was on.” With the slightest mental effort, she lifted him up off the floor. “ She knew I’d go to Kirinos… she sent you there to meet me, and my own telepathy did the rest.”
He hung in the air, twisting and flailing. He tried to speak, but she held up a black-gloved hand. “You exploited my grief,” she continued. “Made me trust you, filled an emotional void inside me—and all the while, you were using me. You implanted your twisted illusions inside me.”
“Not—not all me.” He struggled for breath. “The illusions— the timeslips. They came partly from you.”
“Oh, I know.”
She turned away, leaving him hanging in midair.
“You tapped into my… my fantasies,” she said. “The most private, repressed part of my soul. You gave me something I secretly wanted.” She whirled, fire in her eyes. “But you never really knew me.”
He stared down at her in terror. No longer a player, a swaggering King of the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle. Just a scared child, huddling for warmth in a carnival tent.
“You trade in women’s secrets.” She paced around him, eyeing his helpless form. “You ferret them out, using your cheap illusions. Not so you can know these women, be a friend or a partner to them. Just so you can enslave them.”
He swallowed loudly.
“I could show you secrets.” She stopped before him, smiling. “Would you like that?”
He shook his head.
“Would you like to see?”
Within her, the power surged. Fiery, unstoppable; ancient and new at the same time, all barely contained by her desperate will. Fueled by rage, bound for vengeance, burning with the primal energies of the universe.
With a single stroke, she thrust it into his brain.
Wyngarde stiffened. His consciousness expanded at the speed of thought, racing from one side of reality to the other. A million worlds, a billion stars, a trillion tragic deaths. His mind bent, buckled, and threatened to snap in two.
“‘Looking down on mortal men,’” she quoted. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
He screamed, writhed in desperation, his legs pumping in midair. She stayed with him, pouring more and more power into his tiny, human mind. Forcing him to consume the food of the gods—the massive, inescapable truths of existence.
When his mind snapped, he let out a gurgle. Hung loose in the air, eyes slack. He appeared in his true form now, all illusions gone. A gaunt, gray-haired scarecrow of a man, thin rope of drool hanging from his lip. Jean lowered him to the ground and propped him up against the bookcase.
“Goodbye, Sir Jason,” she said. “You won’t be coming back.”
His eyes stared at her for a moment. Then his head slumped sideways, his jaw went slack.
I almost envy him, she thought. Jason Wyngarde is at peace. Phoenix doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
She whirled away and strode out of the room. The corridor was dark, but she sensed the presence right away. No, she thought, not him. Not now!
She flinched away, staggering against the wall before Scott could touch her.
“Jean. What’s wrong?”
Keep him out, she thought. Got to keep him out of my head. If he knew… if he had any idea…
“We’ve got to go,” he said. “Storm just called… the police are on their way, with orders to arrest the X-Men.”
She turned to him, barely able to process the concept. The police? How could that possibly matter, in light of the forces unleashed here today?
“Jean? Do you understand me?”
She caught a glimpse of his face—and felt a sudden, bottomless sadness. Such a good man. So true, so faithful. So filled with concern.
My love.
She turned away, willing herself not to cry. Not now, she told herself. There will be time for tears later. There will be plenty of tears.
“Kurt’s summoning the skyship,” he said. “We have to leave now.”
She nodded, forced a smile onto her face, and started off down the hallway. She could feel his anxiety, his fear for her, leaking through her defenses. That fear, she knew, was just the beginning.
“This way,” she said, leading the way to a hidden staircase.