Plot - Sing Me a Prayer: Chapter IV

[x-farouk.livejournal.com]

Wherein Our Heroes Are Manhandled and Prophecies Are Creepy




In the machine there was no time. Sound and smell -- the tantalizingly, tear-inducingly false comfort of the desert's smell, taste of the rough sandpaper which the inside of his mouth seemed to have become, the salt of sweat tracing tracks down his skin, the vague discomfort of the matted hair. All his senses were there, working, simply shifted somehow, subsumed by greater things. By the greatest thing.

Only his sense of time had disappeared completely. Broken, swallowed up, brushed aside by the only thing that mattered.

Pain.

He grasped for it, instinctively contrary as always, searching for it in the empty corners of his mind, hoping that it would be his salvation, the anchor that would steady him, arrest his fall, help him to find anything to grip and so find himself in the unrelenting, ebbing and flowing, eagerly thrumming ocean of terror that was stripping him down to nothing, bit by bit.

Time. Once it had gone, his universe, the place inside himself where he spent most of his life had tilted and went insane. Memories swayed and collapsed, their orderly hierarchy demolished and re-arranged into a puzzle game of an insane God.

He thought he remembered being defiant back then, a thousand years ago before they strapped him in. He thought he remembered being scared and trying, desperately trying to see the face of someone who must have been Ozymandias, the face of Fear, the face of death.

But maybe he was wrong. Memories could not be trusted anymore. They have proven to be fragile and malleable things, shriveling and changing, mutating and corrupting, unable to stand against the purity of pain.

He thought he remembered Calysee, the once scion of the Neramani, now the hunting bird of Death Himself given flesh. He thought he could remember her eyes as she looked down at him. Dark and bottomless eyes, incongruous with knowledge and wisdom of millennia in that young and pretty face. Malicious and ancient and avid with his suffering. And at the same time sad and scared and a little pitying.

Even gifted knowledge, he though he remembered wanting to tell her, comes with its own price. Nothing is free in this world, girl.

But that too may have been a fantasy.

Pain. Pain was real. Pain could not be doubted.

His own, wracking his body until his bones seemed on the verge of cracking.

The Shadow King's whose hoarse screams have long ago faded into uncomprehending, hopeless whimpers of a terrified animal, somewhere at the back of Farouk's mind.

And his. The other's.

Blue eyes under the blond hair, fixed upon Farouk, drinking him in, inviting him to share in the joke that was their pain.

The other, strapped across from him, into the same hell.

His pain sounded like laughter.

***

"I am a bloody Londoner, you know" Amanda said bitterly, shielding her eyes. "This fucking sun is a pain in the arse."

Jerusalem shimmered under the summer sun, the ancient city surrounded by the new. The witch rubbed her head irritably - the city's energy was fractured, angry, and it was giving her a migraine. "Have I mentioned civil unrest really doesn't agree with my powers?"

Wanda was more used to having her skin abused by the sun but even she had to admit that it was a bit more brutal here than she'd been used to. She paused in her never ending struggle to keep her hair, wild as ever, under the scarf she'd purchased earlier. "Well, perhaps we could use you as a gauge? The more sick you feel, the more we know there is trouble down the next block?"

It was obvious Wanda was trying to regain whatever sense of good humor she had left. She'd spent an uncomfortable number of hours attempting to get a hold of her former mentor, Agatha Harkness, in an attempt to see if the old woman knew anything about this mess Farouk had managed to get himself into. At first, Agatha had been difficult to get even in touch with and Wanda still did not know if that had been on purpose or simply by accident. But even when they'd finally connected, they'd spent more time either arguing or blasting each other with a cold silence more than they'd discussed the topic at hand. Wanda had returned to her companions uncharacteristically quiet and withdrawn, more hurt regarding the phone call than she'd been willing to admit.

At least Agatha had finally agreed to dig up whatever she could for her.

"Great, now I'm a bleeding canary," Amanda grumped, mostly to herself. "What did her Ladyship say we were going to meet her for?"

"Apparently there's someone here that knows what Farouk is trying to do." Kane picked up his bottle of mineral water and took a long swallow. His phone was on the table, supposedly ready for a call from Hampshire about where to go. It had been distressingly silent since they'd arrived. His mind roamed back to the last time; the strange menagerie of people who had ended up as part of the battle underground against the Templars.

"And thank Christ for that, otherwise we would be chasing our tails forever." Wanda was growing increasingly unhappy with the number of things that they didn't know. The waiting for Hampshire's call was simply making matters that much worse.

"A clockwork golem. An ancient computer designed to predict the end of the world. And the usual prophetic gibberish." Amanda mused over what they had learned. "And a missing history professor with the Templars trying to wipe him out." She made a face. "But why Farouk? What's so special about him?"

The was no real warning. One minute the narrow street, cobblestones and the houses blending into the colors of the famous Jerusalem stonework were quiet - or, at least, as quiet as the traditionally garrulous and quarrelsome city ever was. The tourists and hasidim fought for the right of passage down the street, the soldiers on leave tried desperately to gulp in as much of the brief freedom as they could, an octogenarian on a scooter slipped shamelessly past a donkey-driven cart, flipping off the boy-driver with airy nonchalance.

A day in a city.

And then suddenly all was chaos.

Amanda gasped and half turned to shout a warning, but Kane was already moving, pulling her and Wanda down, the lizard brain of the Canadian policeman reacting before his conscious mind and recognizing the pattern of the snatch-team executing an extremely professional dynamic entry.

Flashbang grenades, unerringly aimed, shattered the windows and exploded, setting off the ball of confusion and screams. The seemingly random groups of passerbys sorted themselves out into disciplined units within seconds; one establishing a perimeter, the other 'stacking up' in front of the door, a queue of men and women with short, snub-nosed carbines, pausing nary a second before shotgunning out the lock and storming the door.

It should have taken minutes, less. The entry was good, the men experienced. Clearing the small house they stormed should have been a job of seconds. But time passed and there was nothing. Sounds of the assault faded and silence reigned. The screening team barely hesitated. An unspoken glance, a fatalistic air settling on them, the decision made without words, as if there was no real choice. They crossed themselves almost in unison and then too, plunged into the darkness.

"Move, move!" Kane yelled, pushing them towards the house. Hampshire hadn't sent them there to wait for a call. She'd sent them there because she knew the assault was going to happen. Which meant Stick was tied up in this somehow. Kane cut right, and cleared the street to the side of the house. There were screams coming from inside, and Garrison crept to one of the windows to peer in.

"I'll head 'round the back," Amanda murmured to Wanda, letting Jerusalem swallow her up even as she finished speaking. It would give her a headache for a while, but she wasn't going to let their only lead be taken. Reappearing at the other side of the house, she paused to scope out the situation. Men with guns and grenades and lots of fighting going on. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Even as the witch watched, several bodies were unceremoniously hurled back out of the door and onto the dirt of the small back courtyard. "I'm not sure if this is going to be a rescue or a clean up," Amanda muttered to herself, wincing as the headache made itself felt. "Let's see which, shall we?"

Summoning up her shielding spell - which took on the consistency of ancient sun-hardened brick - she cautiously made her way inside.

After the deafening noise, the silence was almost oppressive as Wanda hugged the wall next to the window. She closed her eyes in concentration and let the chaos of it all sweep over her, though she found herself grimacing. Enough years had taught her the difference between strings attached to people and strings attached to objects and, considering how many men had stormed the house, there were two few of the first.

Which, hopefully, played in their favor. "Most of them seem to be dead but if our boy is amongst those, I have no idea," she relayed to Garrison. "What do you see?"

"One woman, back to us. One old man tied to a chair. Amanda, get him shielded. Wanda and I will take the woman." Kane said, slipped around towards the doors, ad the last strangled screams from the team that had moved in. Who was the woman? He had only seen long dark hair and a dark coat. He planted one foot, and pushed off hard. His speed carried him into the house and he was still accelerating with a punch when she turned and spun, fingers splayed. Garrison could feel the sudden spike of pain as her fingernails parted his uniform armor like silk, and bit into his flesh. Only an equally fast dodge kept him from being gutted with one slash.

It was Neramani - Deahbird, the strange figure had called her.

As Garrison's dodge spun him out of range, Wanda caught the door that had been swinging back towards her with a hex blast and wood shards of all shapes and sizes, and impossibly sharp, exploded towards the woman lunging after the X-Man. Keeping low, Wanda ducked into the house proper herself and followed the attack with another blast aimed.

The once princess of the Neramani shrugged off the volley and stepped back, the beautiful, coldly symmetrical face unmoved and inhumanly detached. Her calmness made stark and terrifying by the speed of her attacks and the carnage filling the small house.

The strange eyes, brimming with emptiness and meaning and something altogether Other, scanned across the faces of mutants facing her, pausing only slightly on Amanda. "The Lord had said that someone would come looking." She seemed to be speaking almost to herself, satisfied and self-referential cadence of the prophets and lunatics. "The time of shadows is ending, the war begins in earnest." She raised her head glancing at Garrison with what may have been a flicker of recognition. "You were there when I was born... Fate does throw her dice. Perhaps it's just as well. You will do for the harbingers of the war as well as any other. Run and tell them that the old Gods are coming. Tell them that the end is coming."

She smiled then, the striking face suddenly filling with true emotion for the first time. Amanda was moving before she even realized it, seeing Kane and Wanda following their screaming instincts as well, out of the corner of her eye.

One note. One note was all she sang. A sound beyond description or bearing, a strumming vibrato of pure Power. There was no elegance to it, no technique or skill. Just the beauty of utter force, battering at the psionic shields of the trio like a fist of the Gods themselves.

When she came to herself, Amanda was curled in a ball on the floor, arms wrapped around her head. Psionics. She hated psionics, hated the way they made her feel. Stiffly she uncurled and climbed to her feet, a warm stickiness under her nose signalling a nosebleed. She had a feeling if she touched her ears, she'd find the same thing.

Around them, the mercs who had been alive before Deathbird's song lay dead, faces twisted with pain. The old man was slumped in his chair, but still breathing - the witch stumbled over to begin untying him. The enemy of my enemy is my friend... flitted through her mind. "Gar? Boss Lady?" she croaked, trying to look for them in the smoke-filled room. "You still alive?"

"Yeah." Kane wrapped a hand over the slash in his side. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been, just a long shallow cut, as thin as a razor's swipe. He walked over gingerly to the man she was untying. "Stick? You alive, old man?"

The bloody head moved minutely, the steel-grey eyes shockingly sharp despite the damage inflicted on the General of the Chosen. Stick glared briefly at the X-Man before, exhausted by the momentary effort, he muttered something in Latin and went slack, his chin hitting his chest.

"No call for that sort of language," Amanda muttered, finishing freeing him. "Gar, he's out. We're gunna have to carry him out of here, and fast. And apparently he doesn't like you."

"Yeah, well, he's met me." Kane said, carefully picking him up and slinging him over one shoulder, while holding his wound closed with the other. "Let's get the hell out of here and found out what's going on. And maybe a doctor wouldn't be out of order."

Wanda re-emerged from where she'd stumbled out into the street to see if there was anyone around and she was still wiping the blood from her nose when she came back in. "A doctor?" she said, trying to clear her mind. "I know a doctor here - and she knows enough to not ask any questions."

"I can do a patch job when we're not fleeing the local constabulary, but a doctor would be better," Amanda concede, getting a look at Garrison's wound and making a face. "Let's get the fuck out of here."