The room was in a finished attic, with a twin-size bed, table, and TV on the wall.
Lilith indicated the book shelf. "Grimoires. I know you're not inclined to read them, but all the same-"
"Don't touch," Rahne said.
"Right. Well, if you don't need anything, I'll leave you to get settled." She turned to leave.
"Oh, Lilith, one thing. What are those emperorkuls you mentioned?"
Lilith paused in the door. "The Empirikul? I really shouldn't…but…" She took a step back into the room. "You've heard of the Salem witch trials? Every so often someone comes along and tries to kill the magic."
"How is that possible? I thought magic was a force, like the wind or electricity."
Lilith smiled. "Very good, Rahne! You did learn something from the darkchilde. Well, no, no one can kill electricity. But if you kill all the electrical engineers and blow up the generators, the world is a dark place pretty quickly."
"So someone went after wit—magic users?"
"Yes, and they did a lot of damage. The Empirikul were Salem times a million. They went on a rampage across the multiverse. There are who knows how many spells that no longer work because the entities they call on are dead. Really! Then they went after the users. As far as we know, Earth and Limbo are the only two realms with Sorcerer Supremes. All the rest are dead. Doctor Strange, the darkchilde, and a few others stopped them, but it was a close call. In fact, way I heard it, Illyana was almost burned at the stake. And by 'almost' I mean they'd lit the fire and she started screaming."
Rahne was aghast. Even though she had never been close with Illyana, she was shocked that her old teammate had almost been killed. "Is she all right?"
"You'd be in a better position than me to know, sweetheart. Anything else?"
"No."
"Right then. We're early risers but you can come down for breakfast any time."
8
8
Rahne rode her motorbike to the local watering hole. It was exactly the kind of place she would expect from a movie about a small West Virginia town. Rahne got a beer and did her best to pay attention to snippets of conversation. Eventually she decided to play some pool.
She had just run the table when a man's voice whispered in her ear, "It's cheating use enhanced senses."
Rahne couldn't not smile. "My senses are very close to normal in human form." She turned to face the speaker. He was about her age, a head taller with brown eyes. He seemed to be muscular without any body fat. "Does everyone know I'm here?"
"Well, Lilith and Satan wouldn't take in an ordinary border, and I was wondering if a super hero type might start poking around. But I can't complain." He extended his hand. "Reverend Douglas Greer. It's a pleasure to meet you, Wolverine. I've always been a fan."
Rahne winced. "Wolfsbane, not Wolverine. He's a bit uglier than I am."
"Oh, sorry! I am terrible with names. Well, then, let's start over. It's a pleasure to meet you, Wolfsbane. I've always been a fan."
Rahne shook his hand. "I'm not exactly what you would call A-list. How long have you been a fan?"
"How long have you been in this bar?"
Rahne released his hand. She couldn't not smile. "You're quite the charmer for a man of God."
"I am a man, Wolfsbane-"
"Please, call me Rahne."
"I see. Trying to remain under cover."
"Actually, sometimes code names sound stupid. We almost never used them on the old team."
"I see. All right. Rahne. You can call me Doug. But as I was saying, I am a man, with a fondness for both redheads and wolves. Luckily, a twofer just happened to walk in the door. Please." He gestured to a nearby table.
After they sat, Greer asked, "How goes the investigation?"
"It's not much of an investigation," Rahne said. "It's not much of anything. I'm…well, sometimes I think we have fights to distract us from the soap operas we call our lives. Having to save the world is a good way to avoid an awkward question."
"I suppose, though if I may so, the rest of us would hope you could find another way. No offense."
"None taken. Anyway, I'm kind of between situations at the moment. I decided to look into this on a lark. But even if I found what I'm looking for, what do I do about it? We're talking either telepathy or black magic, and I'm neither a telepath nor a sorceress. So unless the bad guy can be stopped by me biting his leg, we're out of luck."
"You do know that Satan and Lilith are, in fact, demons."
"Aye. But how do you know?"
Greer closed his eyes and made a fist. He opened his palm and silver flames appeared on his fingertips. Then they vanished.
Rahne's eyes widened. "That was magic fire. I recognize it from when Magik cast spells. How did you do that?"
"I had a very interesting aunt whose own daughters wouldn't follow her into the 'old religion.' She taught me some things." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "But I haven't done anything like that in years, and I am paying for it. Worst ice cream headache ever." He sipped his beer. "Beer helps. Better than aspirin. Oh, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention that to Lilith and Satan. They don't know I know magic, and I want to keep it that way."
"Mum's the word." Rahne looked warily at the other bar patrons. "How much magical goings on are there around here?"
"More than you would expect but less than you think," Greer said. "But enough to make it hard to warn people about the Joneses. Some of our town fathers are in the local coven and protect them. The rest just listen to my sermons, nod, and don't believe a word of it. Demons? For real? Besides, they're such good people."
"Aye," Rahne agreed, "I know what you mean."
"Growing up with…her."
Rahne nodded. "Everyone else was won over sooner or later, but I wasn't. I couldn't. She's evil. She said so herself. And it's there in the Bible, isn't it? I could never trust her. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to show her true nature." She sipped her beer. "I was always thinking, 'Why did she have to move to our side of the house? So what if she's Colossus' little sister? Why does that demon have to be down the hall from me? She's evil! She's ruining everything. The…'" Rahne drew in a raggedy breath. "'The world would be a better place without her in it.'"
"No one would blame you Rahne. The Lord understands."
"I know, Doug, but then one day-" She broke off, then went on. "I've never told anyone this. I mean, we all knew what happened, but…not why it happened. Why I did what I did."
"Your secret is safe with me. What happened?"
"One day, I had the chance to get rid of her, and I took it."
"What do you mean?"
"We later called it Inferno. All hell breaking loose on a lot of fronts, literally. The gates to Limbo—that's where Illyana was raised by a sorcerer—were frozen open and demons were coming to Earth. Illyana decided the only way to stop it was to accept her destiny as the darkchilde and become Limbo's ruler full time."
"I don't see how you're to blame for that."
"It wasn't that," Rahne said. "It was what I did about it when she said she would do it. Limbo's a funny place. Time and space are all scrambled. We'd stumbled on Illyana when she was six years old, before she had learned any magic. I persuaded Magik to let us save her younger self. It cancelled her out existence. All the demons got sucked back into Limbo and the gates were slammed shut." Rahne sipped her beer. "We were a team, all for one and one for all, never leave our own behind, all that, and yet I talked one of our own into killing herself. She died because of me. All for nothing. A year later, that little girl died of the Legacy virus."
"But she died free from evil. You saved her soul. No one would ever say you did anything wrong."
"Of course not! Because I'm that sweet little girl from Scotland who was unlucky enough to turn into a wolf and almost get burned at the stake by the good men of her town. I would never harm a flea. Not like that witch. Not like that demon down the hall from me." Tears started streaming down her cheeks. "Only that demon was always there for us, from the very beginning right to the end. She never hesitated to leap into action when one of us was in trouble, sometimes leaping for she looked. She sacrificed herself to save the world. And I talked her into doing it to get rid of my nemesis. And you know what? The world wasn't much different without her. In fact, it was kind of duller. I actually miss Limbo now and again." Rahne sipped her beer, then wiped her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't burden you with my problems."
"No, it's no problem. Part of the job description."
"I guess every once in a while, I go over it in my mind. Did I really do the right thing? Was it really for the right reason? If I had malice in my heart, was it really the right thing to do? But she's back, so I guess it's ok."
"Except you still suffered a loss. That little girl wasn't the person you had known. She was gone. Magik was gone. It's only natural to second guess yourself. But maybe you did all you could do. She was the sorceress, in other words, the expert in that field. If there had been another way, don't you think she would have found it herself? The only way to save her was to know what she knew and you didn't. All you could control were your actions. The rest was God's will."
"I suppose."
