Chapter 17: Devil in a Blue Dress
Logan knew something was terribly wrong the moment he placed his hand on the door of Hector’s villa and it slowly swung open under his fingers, its hinges creaking loudly and piercing the silence of the night. The beach was abnormally quiet, and save for the periodic crash of the tide behind him, Logan’s ears could detect nothing for miles. There were no rhythmic beats pumping out from the bar and grill’s loudspeakers…no drunken revelers stumbling along the shore…no chattering or laughter drifting out from the eatery and into the hot summer night.
Staring into the dark interior of Hector’s villa, it was becoming painstakingly clear to Logan why there was no noise emanating from the tavern that evening…and why there probably never would be again.
A moth flitted about overhead as Logan stood on the veranda for a few moments, its shadow dancing across the wooden planks as it tried to get closer to the glow of the lantern hanging beside the door. It seemed as anxious to fly into the flames as Logan was hesitant to step into the dark abyss that was Hector’s home.
A virtual eternity passed before Logan finally worked up the nerve to step inside the villa, but he eventually did, the floorboards creaking beneath his leaden weight as he reached for the light switch beside the entrance to the main room.
The light flickered on and there was Hector, sitting as he always sat in his favorite armchair, his electric blue eyes looking back at Logan…or rather, looking right through him. For those blue eyes weren’t truly seeing Logan, nor would they ever see anything else.
The bullet hole in his forehead made sure of that.
Logan’s throat tightened as he processed the scene before him, guessing from the rifle sitting in Hector’s lap that his friend had been prepared to meet trouble. Unfortunately, from the look of things, trouble got to him first.
If anyone were to ask Logan how long he stood there that night in the doorway of Hector’s residence, he would not have been able to tell them. It seemed like an hour, though for all he knew, it could have been as little as a few seconds.
What he did know was that he eventually flew into a blind rage, roaring loudly as he ripped down the bookshelves lining the walls, the vases that once sat atop them crashing down onto the wooden floor and shattering into a million pieces.
And all the while, Hector sat serenely in his chair, staring straight ahead as Logan tore everything around him to shreds.
When there was nothing left for Logan to destroy and everything went sickeningly quiet again, Logan approached Hector’s dead body, and before reaching out to close his friend’s glassy eyes for the last time, finally told him what he was never able to say before…
”Goodbye”.
Logan couldn’t stay there forever, that much he knew. And so, after a few more moments of stillness, Logan turned on his heels and exited Hector’s villa, his mind now preoccupied with one thought and one thought only…finding Marie.
Storming down the steps of the veranda, Logan was so distracted that he ran smack into a young Mexican woman as she made her way up the steps toward Hector’s door. The woman gasped in surprise, stumbling backward from the force of hitting the wall that was Logan’s powerful chest. As he pushed past her, Logan distantly remembered the woman as Esmeralda, Hector’s date from a few nights earlier.
“Hola, Señor Logan,” the raven-haired beauty said, but Logan may as well not have heard her. He was in no mood whatsoever for small talk, and unless the woman was looking to swallow a fistful of adamantium, she was best to leave him the fuck alone.
Logan barely made it a few steps away from Hector’s villa when Esmeralda, still standing on the veranda, called something else out to him in Spanish, prompting Logan to stop dead in his tracks.
Now Logan’s Spanish may not have been the best, but it almost sounded like Esmeralda had asked him if he’d had any luck finding Hector earlier that morning. Which didn’t make any sense, because Logan wasn’t…
“Grrrrrrrrrrr………..”
Logan’s hands balled into tight fists, his back still turned toward Esmeralda as his claws shot out from their casings. His blood began to boil with the anticipation of revenge as he stalked back toward the bike, which was still parked outside the villa he and Marie had shared.
He knew by the blood-curdling scream that rang out into the night the precise moment that Esmeralda finally opened Hector’s door and went inside.
Once back at his and Marie’s villa, Logan leapt onto the bike and kicked it into gear, white sand flying up from beneath the spinning wheels as he sped away. He may not have known where Marie had been taken, but he had a pretty damn good idea who would.
Hours away, in a small rustic cottage in El Viejo, there lived a shape-shifter named Mystique. She was known mostly by reputation, though Logan had had the displeasure of crossing paths with her once or twice. If his memory served him correctly, he knew exactly where to find her.
And that night she was going to be receiving a very, very unpleasant visit.
~*~*~
“…one hundred forty-five…one hundred forty-six…one hundred forty-seven…”
Marie’s voice, raw and scratchy from her fruitless screams, rasped out into the bleak darkness of her essential tomb, all hope starting to leave her as the night wore on. Sitting with her back to one of the jagged walls, her sweat soaked hair clinging to her forehead and temples, Marie could see no way out of her apparent fate.
She’d made a more than valiant effort to escape her holding cell, and even managed to inch her way up the rotting steps of the wooden ladder on her elbows and knees. Her bound hands had pushed and shoved and pounded at the heavy door above her, but to no avail. The door was either too heavy for her to budge or had been sealed so tightly from the outside that her dreams of freedom had officially gone up in smoke.
“…one hundred fifty-nine…one hundred sixty…”
She started counting to distract her thoughts when delirium began to set in, a side effect of her frantic movements coupled with the stifling claustrophobia of her underground prison. Marie ascertained at some point that she must be in a desert somewhere; she suspected this by the extreme heat radiating from the earth around her and the cactus shadow she had seen earlier.
God, it was so dark…Marie couldn’t see her hands two inches from her face. And quiet. There was no echo to her words; it was as though the black abyss had swallowed them the moment they left her lips.
“…one hundred eighty-nine…”
Marie’s breath began to speed up, coming in short gasps as she fought against her mind, which was gradually turning in on itself. All sorts of hallucinations danced before her eyes as she sat curled up against the wall behind her. One wasn’t a hallucination, though. She could see Erik’s face clear as day, sitting before her with that skewed, evil sneer of his, preparing to violate her in the worst ways possible. And the buzz and hum of the machine. That awful machine...
No. It’s not real.
God, it was so hot…Marie could hardly breathe. A tear scorched its way down her cheek as the reality of her situation sank in…Logan was never going to find her here. He couldn’t possibly; she was no doubt being held in an area so remote that there was no way he’d get to her before she was taken to her certain death.
It wouldn’t even be so bad if she were to die that night, right where she sat…from starvation or oxygen deprivation or fever…but the reality was that a much more brutal fate awaited her. She knew that this gradual erosion of her mentality was just the beginning of the torture.
“…two hundred thirty-seven…”
Marie didn’t know what else to do, so she continued counting, folded herself into the corner of her chamber, and prayed for sleep.
~*~*~
It was not long after he heard the clickety-clack, clackety-clack of her high-heeled boots on the stone walk-up that he could smell her blood. Sharp. Fresh. Ripe. He drooled at the sweet taste of revenge before she even opened up the creaky front door of her cottage and entered, whistling and swinging what appeared in the moonlight to be a bottle of wine in her hand.
He could see her svelte blue silhouette, bathed in the moon’s glow as she floated past the antique desk in the front hall and toward the rustic kitchen, whistling all the while. Crouched in the shadows of her modest home, Logan lay in wait, every muscle buzzing and humming with anticipation with every click of her steps on the stone floor…clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clackety-clack, click…
He knew by the abrupt halt in her steps precisely when she smelled the cigar.
The wine bottle went shattering to the floor at the sound of Logan’s ominous growl reverberating throughout the small cottage. Of course, she didn’t know him as Logan…she knew him only as Wolverine.
Mystique didn’t even have time to flip the light switch before Logan was across the room and on her, backing her up toward the wall in a flash of tanned muscle and cold metal. Her jaw nearly cracked under the pressure of Logan’s fingers as he held her by the jugular, baring his teeth as he held her with her toes barely grazing the ground.
“Where is she?” he growled in her ear, so softly it was almost a whisper.
Logan looked deep into the yellow eyes of Marie’s predator and Hector’s murderer. He was practically salivating at the thought of ripping her guts clean from her body. Her face was stiff for a moment, expressionless…then, as he held her throat in his strong hand, those bright yellow eyes were softening…darkening…and Logan found himself lost in two familiar pools of warm chocolate, swimming in an all enveloping gaze that he’d been trapped in before and never wanted to escape.
Gradually, seamlessly, Mystique’s blue skin began to change color beneath Logan’s fingertips, going from indigo to ice blue and then to creamy ivory…and then Logan’s heart ached in his chest as she completed the transformation, her fire red hair growing long and dark and thick, the blue scales that once covered her becoming lighter, shaping themselves into a light blue sundress…
Marie.
“I’m right here, sugar,” she said soothingly, and God, looking into those warm eyes, hearing her loving voice…for Logan didn’t know whether to rip her guts out or sweep her into his arms, kiss her, never let her go. It wasn’t real. He knew it wasn’t; hell, he’d seen the demon morph right before his very eyes. But she looked so real…she smelled so real.
And he so badly wanted it to be real.
Mystique squeaked a little as Logan’s grip tightened around her throat, and Jesus, she sounded so much like Marie. It agonized him to be harming even the image of her, and that was exactly what he was doing. One hand was clamped so tightly around her jugular now that she was beginning to gasp and gulp for air; the other hand was held, claws extended, to her temple, poised and ready to carve her brain right out of her head.
Logan swallowed hard and gritted his teeth, fighting to hold back his emotion as he slowly backed her up so that her back was pressed against the wall. The entire time, her eyes watched him…Marie’s eyes…
Logan growled menacingly as Marie – no, Mystique – steadily held his gaze, her dark eyes all but hypnotizing him with their uncanny resemblance to the real thing. He was playing right into her hand, he knew this. And with everything in him he just wanted to let loose, rip into her…he just couldn’t seem to get his limbs to cooperate.
Mystique, sensing his hesitation, took her chance, knocking his hands away from her and bringing a knee up to strike him hard in the groin.
“FUCK!!” Logan yelled, doubling over in agony. Now free from his grip, she tried to get past him, but Logan’s senses returned, renewed hatred in his blood as he grabbed her roughly by the arms.
Logan growled as he dragged her away from the wall, her high-heeled sandals scraping on the polished stone floor as she scrambled for her footing, and then she was being swung around and sent reeling backward into the plaster column that divided the cottage’s two main rooms. Her head thudded hard against the obstacle and she gasped in pain.
Logan stalked slowly toward a stunned Mystique as she sank Marie’s shapely figure to the floor, wincing in pain as her hand went to the back of her head. A faraway look came about her face as she then held her bloody fingers up in front of her eyes. Logan felt a twinge in his chest at the image. Even her facial expressions were exactly like Marie's.
Mystique snapped out of her haze quickly, her eyes flashing malicious yellow for a moment as she twisted Marie’s beautiful lips into a cold, calculating sneer. Logan was two steps away from her, growling ferociously, when she snaked out her long legs, tangled them in his, and floored him in one fell swoop. Logan winced in pain as his heavy bones went smacking to the stone floor, and then the fight was on, Marie or Mystique or whoever the fuck she was scrambling onto his back as his claws shot out from his fists.
She was stronger and swifter than Logan had anticipated, and she put up a hell of a fight as he tried to subdue her. Furniture came tumbling to the floor as the two wrestled on the floor, Logan’s razor-sharp claws slicing through the air with every roll onto his back. Finally Logan got some leverage on her and succeeded in flipping her onto her back and pinning her under his heavy body.
Logan straddled Marie’s clone now, his hand once again clamping around her throat before giving her a hard slam into the floor.
“TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!!” He barked at her, sweat dripping from his brow as she bucked and kicked beneath him. Mystique’s eyes flashed yellow again and she twisted Marie’s lips into a callous “Fuck you”.
Logan once again slammed Marie’s impostor down onto the hard floor. This time she cried out in pain as her already wounded head smacked against the ground. A small river of blood began to trickle out from behind her head and along the cracks in the floor. Mystique moaned and writhed beneath him, her head throbbing in pain from the repeated blows to it.
“Tell me,” Logan growled through gritted teeth, sliding a claw out from between his index and middle finger and placed the gleaming sharp edge at the top of her ear. Marie’s long, brown hair hung wildly in front of Mystique’s evil eyes as she looked up at him.
“You think killing me is gonna make a difference?” she choked out from behind Marie’s façade, and looking into her yellow eyes for a few moments, Logan saw a sincerity in them as she uttered her first words of truth that night:
“He’s never going to stop hunting her.”
It was a reality that they all knew and one that he and Marie hadn’t wanted to face, not truly. But the bottom line was that no matter where they ran, no matter where they hid, no matter who they pretended to be, Magneto would keep going after Marie until he found her.
For a brief moment, Logan almost felt pity for the cretin in his grip. She’d taken a fair beating from him, and yet still refused to talk. Who knew what kind of horrors that sicko had in store for her if she didn’t follow through on this job. For a moment she looked truly frightened by what lay in store for her.
But that was just for a moment.
Soon her catlike eyes were hardening again, growing rancid with evil as she silently taunted him with the information he sought from her. Then Marie’s flawless skin was bruising all over, turning blue, and in moments Logan was looking at the rodent he’d come to slice up. Logan’s hand constricted around Mystique’s throat again, and she coughed and sputtered for air.
“You gonna start talkin’, or am I gonna have to start removin’ body parts?” he growled, leaning in close to her face. His claw was still poised above her ear and he was so thirsty for her blood that he was practically salivating as he crushed her into the ground. Mystique hardly let a beat pass between them before whispering, “Go to hell.”
The next thing to leave her blue lips was a chilling scream as Logan lobbed her ear right off of her head.
“You PSYCHOTIC SON OF A BITCH!!” she shrieked, her hand flying to the gash in the side of her head where her ear used to be. She kicked and bucked against Logan, writhing in pain as blood sped from between her splayed fingers and down the side of her neck. Logan held her firm against the ground as she twisted in agony beneath him.
Logan’s single bloody claw stabbed into the floor beside Mystique’s head, skewering her severed ear before holding it up in front of her pain stricken face.
“That’s one,” he snarled rabidly.
Thinking back on that night, Logan couldn’t remember how late he’d stayed there, inflicting all sorts of pain and suffering on Mystique. What he did know was that another ear, two eyes, a tongue, and seven toes later, he finally got the answers he was looking for.
Okay, so that wasn’t exactly true. She’d coughed up the truth just as he was in the middle of jaggedly gouging out her left eye. When he was satisfied that she was telling the truth, he took her tongue. He’d taken the rest for spite.
The night sky still loomed outside, but it was getting softer, lighter. Logan knew morning would be arriving soon. The soles of his combat boots were sticky with Mystique’s blood and he stood bare-chested and sweaty before the front window of the cottage, having already disposed of his badly stained shirt.
He listened to the faint sobbing and whimpering of the eyeless, earless, tongue-less freak behind him for a few moments before turning around to take in her silhouette as she sat securely bound to a wooden kitchen chair.
Logan made his way slowly to the front door of the cottage, his eyes never leaving the two bloody holes in her face. As the door swung open, he issued a final warning to Mystique as she sat trembling in her seat.
“If she dies,” he said quietly, because he knew she could still hear good and fine through the ragged cavities in the sides of her head, “I’m coming back for your heart.”
With that, Logan stepped out onto the patio, leaving Mystique blind and mutilated in her own home, and disappeared into the night.
~*~
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