Salome: Tears of the Goddess
Chapter 5
by
Albertina



Teaser: This is a Logan comicverse story, more or less, that doesn't fit into continuity. It just has some characters in it that I wanted to have skulking around the X-mansion so I put them in there.

Some of the highlights include: Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Gambit, and Wolvie go to a mutant strip club; Logan does his impression of a chicken; X-men throw a b'day party for Logan; and lots of sexual tension between Logan and an original female character. Oh-yeah- also some butt-kicking action. My first attempt at it. Feedback would be much appreciated.

Note: The best lines in this story are taken from the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament.




She left everyday at three o'clock. To Logan's surprise she had her own car, a small, red convertible that she drove like a wildcat. He didn't know where she'd gotten it. He'd asked Jean who'd mumbled something about Maggie having plenty of money somewhere, and that she'd purchased it herself.

He watched her walk out the front door one afternoon from behind a tree. She was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair down.

He watched her get into her car and drive off. He was glad that she drove a convertible, it made it possible to follow her scent from a good distance. She'd been polite enough to him, lately, but she hadn't sought out his company in the week that he'd been back.

He's about to head to the garage for his motorcycle when he sees Jean standing near it, her hands on her hips.

"What were you doing over there, Logan?"

"Stalking Maggie."

"Why?"

"I'm gonna find out where she goes everyday."

"She's working, you know that."

"No, I don't know that."

"If she were up to no good the professor would have told us."

"I don't want her to get hurt, whatever she's doin.'"

"I know better than to try and talk you out of anything, Logan, but I'm going to tell you that I think you're making a mistake."

"Thanks for sharing that with me, Jeannie. Now will you get out of my way?"

"She doesn't want you to follow her."

"She knows I'm doin' it."

"How would she know?"

"She knows. She's not stupid."

He mounts the bike and starts it, raising a cloud of dust in Jean's face.

He's able to follow along behind her far enough that she couldn't possibly know he's following her. She's playing her music so loudly that he might have been able to follow its trail alone.

Still, he's a good fifteen or twenty minutes behind her at best. After trailing her for over an hour he begins to wonder where the hell she's going. They are still in the rural countryside. Unless she'd been mucking out stables he can't imagine what kind of employment she's managed to secure for herself out here. He didn't have any idea what she was up to. She had barely spoken to him in the week or so that had passed since she'd tried to beat him up in her room. And the Cajun had continued to be just as cryptic as she was. It was rankling him that she wouldn't confide in him. He missed her company. She was a beautiful companion. Before the episode in the woods that night he'd hoped that she would come to trust him more and take him into her confidence. Now that hope had dimmed. She'd retreated back into her defenses in the six months or so that she'd been there. She'd become aloof and imperial, though never actually unfriendly, absorbed in her books or her thought, distant from him and the others. He felt a guilt coiling inside him, a feeling with which he was familiar but not comfortable. If he hadn't left for those months perhaps she would have grown to think of the mansion as her home and the X-men as her friends. Then again-perhaps not. It occurs to him that he really didn't know her very well. None of them did.

He follows her scent around a hard bend in the road. He turns onto another dirt road and follows it for a good mile until he reaches a steep hill. Something tells him to stop his bike. He doesn't want to ride over the hill without knowing what's on the other side. He steers off the road and into the woods. He reluctantly leaves his bike parked there and climbs the hill on foot.

A large house is buried in some trees. It is not particularly remarkable, just large. He spots Maggie's convertible parked in front. The house is dark inside with few windows. His every instinct tells him to be wary of this place.

After a moment, a figure in a dark hooded cape emerges from around the house and walks toward the front door. Now's his chance. He comes up behind her and when she turns he delivers a blow that knocks her unconscious. He's about to apologize to her prostrate body when he realizes that she's the girl from Maggie's club, the one clad in leaves with the eyes of solid black. He relieves her of her cloak and puts it on. Then he picks her up and deposits her body gently among the trees. He walks back to the house.

Hope this door ain't locked, he thinks to himself. It isn't. Inside it is so dark that a normal person wouldn't be able to see. He can't follow her scent anymore. It's drowned in the smell of many people. The corridor is long with doors on either side. The trail leads him to the left and to the left again. He's standing in front of an enormous door of what looks to be iron. It is open just a crack. He can hear voices, now, many voices. He walks through it.

It's an enormous room, full of people, all in the same dark capes. He falls in line with them, unnoticed.

At one end of the room is a raised platform. On either side of it are two huge urns bellowing incense. Other than that the room is bare. Its walls are made of stone. No natural light finds its way in. It's cold in there, as if they're underground. The others grow quiet. The whole display is not particularly impressive. Its trappings seem cheap and contrived, as if he'd wandered into the set of an amateur production in a second-rate theater.

The room is lit only by large candles fastened to the walls by iron sconces. As if on cue, the others seat themselves on the cold floor. He seats himself, also. They wait patiently. It has grown completely silent. No one moves. No one even coughs or adjust themselves. All is silent.

A man appears on the platform, dressed in a shocking white, with hair as dark and shiny as obsidian. He is tall and gaunt. His hands shake as he stands there.

Logan's instincts prod him. He doesn't like the look of this guy.

"My children," he says, holding up his arms. He's very thin, almost skeletal, but his voice has the feverish intensity of the dying. His voice is rich and fat. Too rich almost for the trembling body that houses it, as if his voice is drawing on reserves from deep within the pitiful, wasted body.

"My children," he says again, as his arms fall to his sides, exhausted. "There is so little time left. There is only this moment set aside for us."

The hooded ones shiver and start to moan. It is a hollow, mournful sound.

The man lifts his hand they grow quiet.

"What has been taken from us can never be fully returned. We've been driven from out homes, like all God's chosen ones. We are the dispossessed, the lost ones, by denying us His favor we find ourselves more securely in His hand, my progeny. Because what awaits us is what has been promised us."

Logan is growing bored. He thinks the guy is completely full of shit. The hooded dupes are hanging on his every word, he notices. He wishes the guy would just get on with it. The man throws his head back and raises his emaciated arms into the air. His voice thunders through the room.

"My friends we have been called home. A home denied us on this planet of pain, this world of fear and violence. We've lived like the Christians of old facing the lion's tooth and claw, now we will be delivered to the Promised Land, into the grace of His love, into the light of His favor."

The hooded people begin to sway. From somewhere the sound of drums being played.

"Our angel has returned to us, my own. She has returned to us." The hooded mutants pull back their hoods. The candles on the walls go out. Complete darkness.

Over the drums, a great humming like the approach of a plague of locusts cuts the air. Logan would know that sound anywhere.

Magdalene appears on the platform beside the strange man, ablaze with light. Logan has never seen her like this. She looks like the sun itself. Fires burn within her, beneath her skin. She is almost translucent with it, as if it threatens to burn away her very skin. Her hair is gone, replaced with the glowing snake-like tendrils she'd worn before.

She begins to sway too. She fills the room with her radiance, like she's become the sun itself.

Even the ghastly man beside her seems surprised by her power.

She descends from the platform and flutters to the center of the room. She turns once and with a cry pulls a veil from her body. She throws it into the air over their heads, over his head, where it hangs suspended like a sheet of living fire.

The others turn their faces to it, and hold up their arms, moaning. It descends slowly over them all. For a moment, it ignites them all as it breaks over them.

Logan waits for it to fall on him. He thinks he knows what is about to happen to him.

He is wrong.

The room and the people melt away. He is flooded with memories, his own and those of others, a virtual lifetime of memories. There he is when he first joined the X-men, angry and lost. His happiness with Mariko, his pain at her death. There he is laughing with Jean at one of their annual baseball games. His friendship with Kitty Pryde, the pleasure of watching her grow up. The innocence of Colossus, the impish joy that was Nightcrawler, the regal fury of Storm. He sees them all. His pain at Jean's inability to give her whole heart to him, and finally watching his pleasure at her happiness with Scott. The glory and tragedy that was Phoenix, as all that was bright and beautiful in the lives of the X-men grew dark and deadly. And, finally, Xavier himself, his love of humanity so great that it would countenance a sacrifice as great as that of the Phoenix.

When he opens his eyes, the others are all lying unconscious on the floor. Maggie's fire has burned out. He can tell she is exhausted; she can barely stand.

He rises and runs to her side, picking his way among the bodies lying on the floor. He is beside her when she collapses and he gathers her into his arms. He's about to turn toward the door and make a run for it when he sees the face of the strange dark-haired man. He is furious, his eyes burning. At first, Logan thinks he's angry at him but then realizes the guy is headed for Maggie.

"What have you done, you little whore," he says.

He takes no notice of Logan as he grabs Maggie's hair and pulls it hard. She moans softly but doesn't wake up. Her radiance has dimmed slightly.

"Don't ever call her that again, bub," he growls. "I don't know who you are but she's finished here. She's leaving."

The man looks stunned. He seems to have just noticed him.

"Who are you?" he says, staring intently into Logan's face.

Logan doesn't answer. He's already turned and started for the door. He can barely see. He's relying on his memory to get out of there, and the faint radiance that Maggie creates within herself.

When he's standing again outside the house, he pauses.

"We're gonna have to leave your car here, darlin,' " he says.

He looks down at her. She is completely naked.

"Stand up, honey, you need to put this on. You're in a state."

"Logan?"

"It's me, darlin', put this on you. It's cold out."

She wobbles unsteadily. He drapes the cloak around her. She collapses and he lifts her up and walks briskly to where he'd left his bike. He gently puts her behind him on the bike. In a moment, they are on the open road again.

Logan carries Maggie up the stairs to his room, ignoring the questions of the others who stand around, looking worried. He lays her gently on his bed. He leaves her only a moment to go find the others. He meets Rogue at the top of the stairs.

"Logan, what's going on?" she says.

"Not now, Rogue, I need you to run and get me a nightgown or something quick."

"A what? Why do you"

"No questions now. Go get somethin.' Scoot."

She ducks into her room and comes back with a white cotton shift.

"Logan, what's wrong with Maggie? Why is she-"

He takes the gown from her without answering and heads back to his room.

"Come on, darlin', can't have you lookin' like that in my bedroom. Not yet, at least."

She doesn't stir. He lifts her head and puts the gown over her head, pulls her arms through it. She mumbles incoherently.

"Yup, you've got some explaining to do, but not now. You just rest up. You're gonna be all right."



CHAPTERS:   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8




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