The Ultimate Prey
Chapter 2
by
DreamWeaver and Hunter
DISCLAIMER: Everything belongs to Marvel except Kiefer, Jan, and the Disco.
FEEDBACK: Yes please. . . . katduza@yahoo.com or mainsmel@yahoo.com
HUNTER'S NOTES: Many thanks to Dream Weaver for all her amazing hard work to get this done before I left for Canada. It was a pleasure to work with you.
DREAMWEAVER'S NOTES: Kudos to KAT for setting out the whole idea! An amazing mindmeld as we sliced, diced, and spliced the story together over many a chat. Great fun!
AUTHORS' NOTES: The dialect of the two main baddies is of Southern African origin: South Africa (Kiefer) and next door Namibia (Jan). (boet--Afrikaans for 'brother', in slang-comrade or close friend)
Outside on the corner Cyclops succinctly introduced the person and his problem. "Jan here is with a group of mutants being pursued by a man he believes to be the serial killer."
"In New York?" protested Bobby. "But Ororo and her team are hunting the creep down in Florida!"
"Then it would behoove us to establish the validity of this supposition," observed Hank, "since we are, how does current parlance express it, 'on the speck'?"
"'On the spot,' Hank," Logan supplied, narrowly studying the stranger. The streetlights made the guy look whiter than ever, a cardboard cutout. Average height, thin, wiry, and an odd stillness about him centered in the unblinking gaze of his pale eyes. "How'd you know we were here? How'd you know we might be interested in your little problem?" He knew he sounded abrupt, rude, but he didn't care. There was something about this guy that gave him the willies.
"Professor Charles Xavier. His school for the gifted." The man suddenly smiled as if in afterthought, pale teeth in a pale face. "The mutant grapevine is very specific in telling who really are his students, his teachers." He gave a quick, stiff nod of recognition to his listeners.
The stranger had a faint, choppy accent Logan couldn't place. German? Brit? A little like both. But even as he was about to ask, Jan explained.
"We are a small group, my wife, my sister, our four children. We shortly arrived from South Africa. You have read, I am certain, of racial disturbances there. But when the prey is mutants, both white and black join forces to hunt us down. My brother-in-law was killed by a mob as we were escaping. We seek refuge and will--" He suddenly flung a hand to his head. "Ach! Not again! We must hurry!" He started off at a dead run down the street and after a startled moment the others followed.
"You're telepathic?" Scott panted out as he drew up to the other.
"Thoughts? Nein. But feelings, emotions, ja. Now there is fear, pain-- Hurry!"
Two blocks, three, Logan lost count. Even he was beginning to get winded and Bobby was weaving until Logan took him by the arm and hauled him along, their speed dropping as a result. Scott had fallen a little behind Jan who ran in a easy, steady, distance-eating lope, but Hank bounded shoulder to shoulder with the stranger. They'd arrived at a seedy part of town, Logan noticed, and he wondered where exactly they were headed when at the far end of the block Jan whipped into an alley with a sharp, barked, "Come!"
The laggards forced their pace after the others disappeared between the buildings, finally turned into the alley themselves and had sprinted halfway down the narrow crack before Logan realised it was a dead end. The only outlet was where they'd entered. The man's senses went on alert. He jerked Bobby to a halt, squeezing his arm when the other opened his mouth. The kid was quick. He nodded, made no protest as Logan pulled him over against a wall. The growing suspicions Logan had nurtured for this pasty-faced stranger suddenly bloomed into vibrant life. No one awaited them in the gloom.
Had the guy taken the other two into one of the buildings? Logan squinted, scrutinising the canyon that walled them in on three sides. Bricks darkened by soot and age and rotting with moisture, doors and windows firmly boarded up. The sour, musty stink of tenements long abandoned. No visible entrance anywhere. As for the dark, cluttered alley, all he could make out were heaps of refuse and at the closed-off back a large, looming shadow blacker than the wall behind it. Muted radiance from the street picked out two shiny eyes--
Logan grimaced, gave himself a mental shake. Too many nights of watching horror movies with the kids in the common room! Not eyes, headlights. Headlights of something big. Truck, maybe. No, delivery van. A delivery van? Here in this neighborhood? Any vehicle left unattended in this place for more than half an hour would have been stripped down to the chassis, but this one faced the street looking ready to peel out. Where the hell were these moms and kids the stranger talked about? In the van, armed to the teeth and defending the vehicle against all comers? Or there were any women and children at all? The spot between Logan's shoulder blades tingled and it felt like each individual hair on his head was a little antenna scanning the area for danger. Now from behind, loud in the silence, came a muffled scrape of feet.
Logan slid down the wall pulling Bobby with him. A couple of guys backlighted by the street blocked the single exit and those long rods in their hands sure as hell weren't sticks. Keeping his eye on the men Logan tilted his head towards the kid, murmured, "Feel up to doin' your thing, Icicle?"
Bobby looked startled and pleased at the same time. "Yeah, sure!" he whispered. "What's happening?"
"Our buddy Jan laid a little trap and we swallowed the bait. I'll deal with the bastard and get our guys. In the meantime, you take care of those jerks in the street then run!"
"I wanna fight too!" the kid hissed.
"You will. You are! Your job is to find a phone. Call the mansion, tell 'em what's going down. Then get back to that disco and wait for us. Outside," Logan amended. "Think you can handle it?"
"No problemo! I'll freeze their balls off!" Bobby breathed with relish.
"Umm. Yeah, okay," Logan agreed with an inward cringe and muttered, "If you get yourself killed, Ice Cube, I ain't taking you to anymore discos, hear?"
With a grin the kid began edging towards the riflemen, a cloud of frosty air like breath on a freezing day already forming around his outstretched hands. Logan saw him take shelter behind an overflowing trash bin then, hunched low, slipped down the middle of the alley towards the van. It was the only place Beast and Cyke could be. But how the hell did they get downed so fast? And so silently?
He sniffed for them--Scott's salt and sulphur, Hank's incongruous scent of burnt roses--but his nostrils were flooded by the alley's stench of rancid garbage. Logan had almost reached his target when the vehicle's lights flashed on, blinding him those precious few seconds like a deer on a highway as the engine revved up and the heavy machine bore down upon him.
It had never been one of Logan's lifelong ambitions to become a hood ornament. So now he dropped, rolled through filth, claws slashing blindly at the looming wheel. His panic prove more effective than cold calculation, for the remaining three tires squealed in alarm as the van struck the wall a glancing blow and rocked to a stop.
Scrambling to his feet, a quick look at the shattered windshield told him that the occupant hadn't discovered the purpose of seatbelts. And it didn't appear that now he'd get the chance to find out. A rapid drum of boots alerted Logan and he whirled around to spot the sheen of light on a rifle barrel. A soft pop like opening a beer bottle . . . He ducked reflexively. Too late. Something bit him in the throat, set his blood boiling, the next instant froze the life in his veins. The claws slid silently home even as he crumpled to the ground.
*****
The drone in his ears sorted itself into words he almost understood. "I tell you, boet, the baster is completely bevok. Attacking the van with a knife? Bevok!"
"Did you find the weapon, Jan?"
"Nein. And that one is fortunate I did not. I would have used it on him. Bled him dry like a gutted bull, the baster, for what he did to Ernst."
"Luck of the hunt, Jan. It's dangerous to underestimate the prey. Ernst was overconfident and careless. A deadly combination."
"Ja, maybe so. Maybe so you are right. But the tire ruined, the windscreen shattered-- Delay, delay, delay! And then because of that the airport sets back our flight time . . . "
A soft laugh. "He doesn't look like much, hey? Still, causing all this trouble . . . I think we will have an interesting run with this one."
"The soonest is better. I will nail his puny bollocks to my wall!"
Logan coughed, moaned at the pain that action caused in his throat.
"Ach! The baster thinks to wake, does he? Here, I will rock him to sleep!" A heavy boot landed in his ribs rolling him on his back.
He would have howled but his swollen throat restricted his air. Gasping, he thrashed about, roused and squinted against the light. He had a jumbled, bleary impression of the floor vibrating under him, a loud humming in his ears, two figures looming over him. Pale-faced Death bent down, jabbed something in his arm and he sank back into the suffocating dark.
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