The Jewels of Cyttorak (5 page)

He was a mountain man and these were his mountains. Mountain law would apply. He would defend his homestead.

Let the evil monster come. He would be ready.

Professor Charles Xavier sat alone in his study in the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, waiting.

The stone fireplace crackled with a low fire even though the temperature in the Westchester area of New York was predicted to be in the high eighties. The Professor had discovered years before that a small fire took

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the chill off the marbled walls and hard floors of his study. He knew that the chill was mostly imagined, since his hoverchair covered his legs and kept him very comfortable. But for the most powerful telepath in the world, imagined comfort was almost as important as real.

Maybe even more so.

The Professor slumped slightly in his chair, his bald head reflecting the yellow flames of the fire in the dark room. Lately he’d come to like the study dark, even during the bright, summer days. Heavy drapes covered the tall windows and he never had them pulled open. The sameness of the dark study, day or night, kept him better focused on events outside the room. And lately there had been a lot of events.

It seemed there always were.

And now there was another.

Not as important on the scheme of things as some of the tasks his X-Men had handled lately, perhaps, but still one that needed to be dealt with.

There was a knock at the door and Scott Summers and Jean Grey entered. They both moved across the study to face the Professor as he turned around.

“You wanted to see us, sir,” Scott said.

The Professor smiled. Scott had been with the team for a long time and he still sometimes acted like a young boy called into the principal’s office when summoned. It was one of the countless things that the Professor liked about the leader of the X-Men.

“Yes,” the Professor said, glancing down at his hoverchair, then back up at Scott, whose eyes were covered by sunglasses made of ruby quartz—the only material that

could keep his powerful optic blasts in check. “There’s a slight problem I need your help with.”

“Anything,” Jean said. At the moment she was dressed in a long red summer dress that accented her flowing red hair and pale skin. Scott wore light summer slacks and a Polo shirt. A tennis sweater was tied around his neck.

Jean and Scott made the perfect couple and always had, since their days as founding members of the X-Men—though the road from teammates to married couple was a rocky one. Still, even after everything they’d been through lately, all the missions and danger that being an X-Man meant, they looked rested and healthy. The two of them never ceased to amaze and please him.

“This item,” the Professor said, “is sort of a family matter.” He hesitated, then went on. “Cain is acting strangely again.”

“ ‘Acting strangely’ how?” Scott asked.

“I’m not really sure,” the Professor said. Cain Marko was the Juggernaut, and the X-Men had, so far, been the only thing that had managed to consistently stop or slow him down.

“I got this report faxed to me twenty minutes ago,” the Professor said. He handed Scott a paper and waited for them to read it together.

Basically the fax said that the Juggernaut had stormed right through the middle of an Ohio town, heading east and slightly north. The problem was that he hadn’t even bothered to use a road, simply walked through, or over, anything that was in front of him. So far, the damage had been minimal, and limited to vehicles, the occasional fire hydrant, and one deputy who made the mistake of trying to stop him and had a concussion to show for it. With the Juggernaut’s strength, that could just as easily have been a broken neck.

“Something
got under his helmet,” Scott said, shaking his head. “That’s for sure.”

“You want us to confront him?” Jean asked.

The Professor nodded. “Yes. This is not a typical rampage, but the Juggernaut is still a danger. At the very least, we need to keep an eye on him.”

“We’ll handle it,” Scott said confidently.

“Thank you, Scott,” the Professor said.

“No problem, sir,” Scott said.

Arm in arm, the two turned and left the dark study to return to the bright light of the summer day.

For a moment the Professor watched them go, then turned and stared into the fire.

There had been a number of times he wished he could get inside his stepbrother’s mind to see what drove him. But the helmet he wore kept out any telepathic intrusion.

What are you up to, Cain?

There was no answer.

The plush office of Wingate Toole overlooked the river and parts of New Orleans beyond through two-inch-thick, bulletproof glass. A well-stocked bar filled the wall nearest the window with shelf after shelf of varied liqueurs and ornate glassware. The room was thickly carpeted and oak paneled, and the center of the area was dominated by a massive oak desk surrounded on three sides by heavy, high-backed chairs.

Air-conditioning kept the temperature of the room at exactly seventy-one degrees no matter how warm and humid it got outside. But this morning, to Wingate Toole, the temperature seemed much higher. The air felt thick and heavy with the fear that he held clamped inside his stomach. Every so often, during the morning, he had broken out into a thick, oily sweat.

A large man, built like a truck driver, Toole normally would be sitting at his desk at this time of the morning, his feet up, the smoke of his cigars filling the air as two or three of his business partners sat nearby talking over the coming day’s activities.

But not this morning.

In the middle of the night, he’d sent his entire organization into full security alert. The warehouse complex that housed his office had become like Fort Knox.

No one got in or out.

Period.

Thick, steel shutters had been lowered over his huge office window, blocking the view and the rising sun. Extra machine guns had been set up facing every possible entrance. A helicopter circled slowly over the area, also armed and watching for any sign of anything different.

Over two hundred men with the newest, most modem and powerful weapons guarded the inside of the warehouse complex, all in full combat alert. All had orders to shoot to kill.

Toole chain-smoked cigars as he paced behind his desk. His most trusted associate, a tall, rail-thin man

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named Kyle, stood and watched, saying nothing. Kyle had been at Toole’s side since shortly after the fear had crawled into Toole’s head in the middle of the night and warned him of someone coming after him.

It had been a long night for both of them, but Toole knew it was only starting. The long night was going to stretch into days, maybe weeks, before this was finished. He knew it “inside” like he had known other things over the years that had helped him build this empire of crime.

And inside his head he kept hearing someone laughing.

Someone who wanted to come and take everything he had built.

He was not going to let that happen.

Not today, not ever.

It was time to check on one more detail.

Toole stopped pacing, yanked out his big leather chair, and dropped down into it. Stabbing his cigar out like he was crushing an insect with it, he glared up at Kyle. ‘ ‘Report to me every thirty minutes on the status of security around the building,” Toole said. “Now get out of here.”

Kyle only nodded and turned away.

Toole watched him go. It was Kyle’s job to make sure no one could get in, and Toole trusted him to do it. And Kyle was very good at his job. Maybe even the best. But in this circumstance, Toole wanted to be informed all the time. After all, it was his life and his empire that was at risk.

Toole waited until Kyle snapped the door closed, then Toole flipped a switch, locking the door and electronically

blocking all snooping devices. Then he sprang back to his feet and moved to the bar near the window. He could use a drink right about now, but didn’t dare. He wouldn’t drink until this was over.

In quick succession, he picked up and put down six different bottles on three shelves. As the last bottle was replaced, a slight click echoed through the large room and a small panel on the ornate wooden front of his desk opened wide.

Behind the panel was a small safe.

Toole moved three more bottles in succession, disarming an alarm system and explosive booby-trap that would instantly kill anyone who touched the safe while it was still activated.

Kneeling in front of the desk, he spun the dial to the correct combination and opened the safe, doing something he hadn’t dared do all night.

Inside was a small leather pouch. He pulled it out and felt the reassuring weight inside.

As a construction worker doing a housing job outside of New Orleans, he’d stumbled on a large green stone buried in the mud. That day he’d been feeling hung over and a headache had been pounding at him for most of the hot afternoon. But the minute he touched the stone, his headache vanished and he felt stronger and more alive than he had in years.

He pocketed the stone without telling anyone and went back to work. A few days later, he started having ideas that got him thinking beyond just drinking and working construction. And since he’d touched the stone he felt great, had plenty of energy, and didn’t much need sleep.

Five years later, he stood on the verge of taking over all of New Orleans.

He slid the gem out of the bag and held it in his hands. Normally, the feeling of strength he got from the stone would be enforced by touching it, and he had spent many a night just sitting at his desk holding the emerald.

But this time the touch of the stone was almost hot, and he dropped it at once.

Inside his head he heard the laughing again. And the words,
I’m coming.

He picked the stone back up and put it in its pouch. He tossed it back into the safe and snapped the door shut, then closed the panel over it.

With a quick step back to the bar he armed the safe again.

Then, taking a deep breath he turned to the air and spoke to the voice in his head.

“Come and get me,” Toole said, his voice muffled in the big room. “If you think you can.”

The only reply was the faint impression of someone laughing.

Robert Service had spent the night sitting on the couch in his office, staring at the large emerald laying on the coffee table in front of him.

And laughing.

For some reason the joy of the emerald’s power just made him laugh. He’d never laughed much before, tending to take life more seriously, as his father had beat into him to do. But suddenly ending up with the power from the emerald had caused him to just laugh at the world and the wonderful luck he’d been handed by the man he hated.

How ironic it was.

And how funny.

After leaving his father and brother and returning to his office, he’d tried to sit at his desk, but his expanded frame had made the desk and all the chairs far too small for him. He had smashed a second chair simply by trying to sit in it. Obviously he’d have to have a special desk and chair made for him.

The couch had held him and he’d spent the night sitting there, staring at the emerald, alternately laughing at his good fortune and silently trying his best to get in touch with the feelings he had inside his head. Later in the day, he planned on testing some of the limits of his new size and strength, and having a doctor check him over to make sure he really was as healthy as he felt. But for the entire night he just sat and stared at the emerald.

And he got some answers.

His new physical power, even as great as it seemed, was only a small part of what it might be if he found the other two parts of the emerald. How he knew this, he had no idea. But, as with the strength, it just came with the emerald.

However, the emerald had given him no other special abilities that he could determine. He wasn’t any smarter, that he could tell, and he couldn’t sense anything that didn’t directly relate to the emerald. And even then the

sense was distant, like a whisper caught on a breeze.

But the whispers were loud enough for him to understand that two people possessed the other two emeralds. Both lived in the United States, one in the west, one in the south. Exactly where, he had no idea, nor did he know who the people were. But he could sense their presence and their direction and he figured that would be enough.

He could also sense another very powerful creature tied directly into the source of the energy of his emerald. Every time he thought of that creature, he felt a faint pain throughout his body and saw red. At the moment, he had no idea what that meant, but he assumed in time he would find out. What he did know was that the red creature was getting closer with every hour and the pain was increasing slightly.

He had no intention of being in this office when that creature, whatever it was, arrived.

A knock at his office door interrupted his musings over the emerald.

“Robert?” Gary’s voice drifted faintly through the thick wooden door.

“Come in,” Robert said, his voice booming so loud that it startled him. Glasses on the wet bar shook from the intensity of it. It was going to take some t
im
e to get used to his new power.

The door slowly opened and Gary stepped through, his face pale, his eyes sunken from lack of sleep. But at the sight of Robert, Gary’s face got even paler and his eyes widened with the shock of what he was seeing.

Robert laughed, again rocking the glasses on the bar across the room. “Gonna take some getting used to, isn’t it,
little
brother?”

Gary nodded and stopped in the doorway, still staring at the mostly nude body of Robert.

Robert’s shredded clothes had fallen aw'ay during the night and he’d covered himself with a blanket that looked more like a towel over his huge body. He knew exactly how he looked—he’d spent a considerable amount of time staring into the mirror—-and he liked it. He liked the size of his chest and arms more than anything.

After a moment Gary asked, “Are you all right?” “Better than ever,” Robert said, standing and wrapping the blanket around his waist like a beach towel. His head almost reached the tall ceiling.