Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except Irbis and several innocent short-lived bystanders; everything else is Marvel's only.

14. Dead

Creed had spent nearly two weeks searching for the hideout where Irbis was being kept. He'd gone through berserker rages and cold vengeful plans while at it, especially on those first days when all he had to go on was the woman's cryptic message. He nearly wished she hadn't yet severed all her connections to the X-Men, as telepaths might have come in useful in the search.

Surveying the abandoned flat block, Creed got a pair of night vision binoculars from the backpack. He might not be used to extracting live targets, but he wasn't planning a real extraction. He just needed to locate the woman and secure her before killing everyone on the site. Then he would extract her.

Nearly two weeks… They had had time for everything and anything! She had been raped, beaten and tortured, that much he was certain, the only question dangling in his mind was whether she was still alive. In most cases, bait would flush out a hero whether said bait was dead or alive, but Creed knew that when it came to villains it tended to be best to keep baits alive. They could lose interest otherwise and delve straight into payback mode and there really was no sense in getting rid of potential leverage. He hoped the assholes had kept that in mind.

There was nothing suspicious on the premises, except for the absence of homeless people and the securely closed entrances. There was graffiti over the doors but, from his position on the roof of the opposite building, the doors seemed to be as solid as a safe.

Unfortunately, Irbis wasn't just bait. She had killed one of the so-called Colonel's men, apparently his brother, if Creed's research over the two weeks wasn't mistaken. That made her capture personal and the torture a given. He just hoped they didn't push it too hard and got her killed before they intended. Torture on account of personal grudges is often taken too far too easily. Which also led to the question if the woman would be viable for a rescue or was damaged beyond recovery, which meant she was only good for a mercy kill.

Creed put the night vision binoculars back in the bag and got thermal imaging binoculars. They couldn't overcome the barrier of walls and glass, unfortunately, but they could tip him to which floor was producing more heat.

Then there was the possibility that she wasn't bait at all; that the Colonel had targeted her alone and didn't give a damn about catching big bad Sabretooth. If that was the case, Irbis would only be alive if the guy intended to torture her for as long as possible and had a hell of self-control.

But no. The man was a professional. He'd want the two in one deal; if for no other reason, because Creed had been the one killing the supposed brother. Irbis had tortured him, true; but Creed was the one who'd snuffed him.

The third floor. They must have machinery running there, besides the lights being on, which had the walls slightly warmer than the rest of the building. Right. Time to start the show.

The building was too far off from any neighbouring structure for him to jump onto it, so he approached its back and started climbing up the wall. The windows on the first floor looked as hermetically shut as the doors, but Creed expected the second floor to be less impervious. He was careful to keep any noise to a minimum – the extra guns and knives he was carrying always required extra care when it came to noise. It was one of the reasons he'd rather just use his claws, besides his natural preferrence, naturally. But if Irbis was still alive and rescueable, he might need to kill folks from afar in order to keep her safe, hence the guns and knives.

As he reached the second floor, he noticed the windows were also firmly shut. Drats. Forcing an entrance on the third floor was off the table, so it was either the fourth floor or the roof. He stopped briefly by a third floor window and sniffed it, looking for any scent that might squeeze through the tight openings. Nothing. Pushing himself upwards, he was forced to go as far as the roof.

The door on the roof must either be booby-trapped or have an alarm, but there was no other way in. He'd really rather keep his presence unkown, especially because the woman might be anywhere on the four-storey building. Creed lay down on the floor and peeked through the space between the door and the floor, sniffing. No explosive, apparently. He got a snake pinhole camera through the narrow entrance and switched on the night vision mode. Turning it round and round, it seemed at first that the door was simply locked but, as that seemed too unlikely, he insisted, paying close attention to the door lock and to hidden nooks. It was almost five minutes later that he found it, the laser aimed at the lock. It was a silent alarm. The moment the door opened, they'd know he was there.

Creed got his bag off his back and got his secret weapon out: a six inch adamantium dagger. It was a feminine looking thing – as well it should be, since he'd gotten it from a woman he'd been hired to kill a couple of years ago – but it was stealthy. He'd palmed it almost out of principle, since adamantium was hard to get by, but had ended up using it a few times when he'd had to make his own entry into places he, for whatever reason, couldn't storm. In less than five minutes, he'd opened a large pet door for him to sqeeze through.

Bag back on, he slid down the stairs, careful not to trigger any alarms, because they were there, waiting for him. By the time he got to the fourth floor landing he had already avoided two. He sniffed the air, stale and dusty, and pressed on, averting a third alarm. As he started down the stairs onto the third landing, though, he picked on recent, and not so recent, scents. One of the scents had him quickly suppress a growl. It was the scent of death.

For a moment, he was ready to forget the whole stealth thing and just burst into mayhem mode, but he couldn't be absolutely sure Irbis was the one giving off that scent. There could be more folks there… and he mustn't forget how the woman had survived the desert. Eating raw snake and drinking blood. If someone could survive two weeks of torture, it was that stubborn woman of his. If she got it into her head not to die, not even Death itself… Creed breathed out. Who was he kidding? She may be tough but... He could smell two handfuls of people, although most scents seemed old. It made sense if the woman was dead, he supposed. Shaking his head, he forced himself to focus on the task at hand. Find the woman, or her body, and then kill everyone. That's what he had come here for.

As he continued down to the third floor, there seemed to be no more alarms. Creed could smell Irbis's scent. It was particularly strong towards the left. Just as strong as the scent of blood and of… He suppressed the growl, aggravated. He knew she had been raped (it was the most natural thing to happen, and repeatedly too, if one thought sensibly), so why was that smell pushing him towards a berserker rage? At least he'd called first dibs, icy comfort as that may be. And that's when it hit him.

Creed froze for a second. The scent of death came from the right, but Irbis was very clearly to the left. Hope quickly rekindling, he listened more attentively, sniffed more carefully. There were two men to the right. Back in Madison and in Dallas, the mercenaries had had some sort of technology to hide their scents; but unless they knew he was coming in, they'd have no reason to hide in the shadows so silently, especially when the voices he heard were talking in a casually relaxed way. No, there were only two people in the building, besides him. Who had died, then? Again, no. It wasn't time for questions, not just yet.

Swiftly, an eye out for surveillance cameras, he advanced through the corridor. The two men were discussing football and, when Creed jumped in on them, they were just sitting around in a room with a few monitors. They were so relaxed, they didn't even notice him until he had caught one of them by the neck. The black guy sitting opposite just froze mid-sentence, watching his colleague gasp for a difficult breath.

"Where's the Colonel?"

"shit" While the reaction was fairly appropriate, it was not what he had asked. "shit shit shit"

Creed shook the guy he was holding by the neck.

"This neck ain't gonna stay in one piece fer long, and ya're next in line, asshole. So where's the big man behind the circus?"

"Look, we're just technicians, man," Creed growled and eased the tension on the neck he was holding. Not because of the desperate man's nails clawing at him, but because he seemed to be trying to sputter something.

"Left," the guy wheezed. "left... gone..."

"Where to?" And then, cueing in one the 'we're just technicians' excuse. "Technicians of what?"

The guy ahead swallowed, his body shaking in fear. Creed looked at the one he was still holding. That one had already pissed and crapped himself, tears and snot running down his face. If these were torture experts, they sure knew how to act like nerds who'd only ever done virtual torture, and the clean type, too. The large room they were in sported state of the art surveillance technology on a wall, even if the monitors were all switched off, a bunch of mops and detergents to the other side, and medical material near the window, including a cardiac defibrillator.

"Who the fuck are you already?"

"Look, all we do is make sure the place is clean and running, that all the technological stuff is working, that everyone gets their food on time, and that the prisioners don't accidentally die... that's all. Once the prisioners are done in, everyone goes home and we clean up. That's it."

Creed dropped the guy, who fell in a heap, wheezing and coughing, and took a couple of steps towards the other one. Snarling viciously, even if the growl was rather mild, he unsheathed his claws and the whimp backtracked into a wall.

"We don't know where they've gone, ok? It ain't none of our business! We don't go about asking questions, we just do as told, that's it!"

"Who died?"

"The prisioner and the telepath."

Creed frowned. The prisioner? Did he mean Irbis? But he had smelled her alive, if not necessarily well. Could it be someone else?

"Who was the prisioner? What happened?"

"It was this Hispanic woman... she had thirty minute sessions with the telepath every six hours. She was pretty tough, you know, but they pushed her too hard 'cause she kicked it the fourth or fifth time they autopsied her."

What? That didn't make any sense! Of course a person will die if you start an autopsy. The fourth one? The guy must have seen the confusion on his face and bet his life on his ability to provide information.

"It's a telepathic autopsy, you know. She wasn't supposed to die, just blackout from the pain and the shock. Then the telepath would reawake her and change scenarios. The first time, he went as far as starting to remove her heart; she was that tough. Nobody thought she'd keel like that after that session; caught everyone by surprise. Especially the telepath; he didn't make it out."

"And she's dead?" But he'd smelled her!

"Yeah, completely. You know, no brain activity, no heart activity, no nothing. Dead. We're supposed to get the body ready for removal first thing in the morning."

He was telling the truth, Creed could tell; but he had smelled...

"When was this?"

"About six hours ago or so. The Colonel was really pissed, I can tell you. We had to try and resuscitate her for over half an hour before he finally gave up on her."

Frustrated, Creed reached for the whimp and knocked him out. The wheezing fellow trying to act dead on the floor could fill him in on more details if need be. Nevertheless, he kicked him a couple of times for good measure before leaving the room. He followed the scent of death into another room, further to the right. It had two hospital cots but only one had side rails and restraining devices. They were both next to machinery to monitor brain waves and other body functions. Coming closer to it, he confirmed that the scent of death was stronger in the cot not used by Irbis. And yet everyone thought she was dead.

He left the room and swiftly jogged in the opposite direction. With each step, he sniffed the air again and again until the scents almost echoed in his nose. She did not smell dead!

The door was wide open. Why close it when the prisioner is dead, right? He found himself slowing down, almost stopping, as he reached the entrance to the room. He really wanted her to be alive. Wary, Creed entered and clenched his teeth. This was not the time to get emotional over his belongings and go berserk. Her body was sprawled on a thin mattress, like a dropped corpse. Naked. Trying not to breathe in the scent of the repeated raping, he forced himself to analyse the area. Bruised. Scratched and wounded. No blood, though. He forced his eyes off her broken body but only reached the mattress, covered in bloody stains, not old, either, and in tell-tale yellowish stains, fresher still if possible. He looked around as he finally entered, noticing a bathtub and a toilet to one side, both filthy, and two cameras covering all the angles of the square room.

Creed knelt next to the body. Her chest was as still as a corpse's but, although she was pale under the bruises, her lips weren't even remotely bluish. He put two fingers to her neck, looking for a pulse. The problem was that he should be able to hear her heartbeat if she were alive. Nothing. Then why didn't she smell dead?!

What did he do now?

Indecision aggravated him!

She was not fully dead yet. He made that decision in an emotional burst. She belonged to him and she didn't smell dead, not yet, so she could be resuscitated. Even after six hours? Yes, even after six hours! After three fucking days if he said so! Like a fucking Lazarus. In a frenzy, he started CPR.

"Com'on, girl," he coached with a growl. "Ya survived this long, ya stupid asshole, ya mean ta tell me ya're gonna give up like a fuckin' loser?"

He felt stupid, talking to the lifeless body. Like those stupid films where the magic ingredient to stave off death is telling the dying pricks how strong they are, how needed they are, how loved they are.

"Com'on, Irbis," as he re-heard the black guy explaining they'd tried to resuscitate the woman for half an hour. "Ya're stronger than this."

If he kept pressing her chest like that, he'd end up breaking a rib or two.

"Come ON!"

"Irbis!" Frustrated, he slapped her. "Wake up already! Ya ain't gettin' away from me that easy, girl! Not like this!"

Breathing hard, he closed his eyes. He could hear her, in his head, saying she didn't beg. Calling his name. Teasing him into calling her name. That stupid foreign accent of hers, Veetohr, Eenesh. Damn her!

"Eenesh," he called through gritted teeth. "Wake, up. Eenesh!"

He got up, taking deep breaths to keep the berserker rage at bay. He paced the room and found himself next to her. He slapped her two, three times then shook her until he realised that could easily break her neck and then she really would die. He took one hand from her shoulder and slid it up to the back of her neck, feeling for anything broken... no, everything seemed in place. Looking at her face, her rosy lips (they'd always been reddish, even without make-up), he felt his cool slip away and pulled her to him, rocking her body mindlessly, breathing out his anger, frustration, pain...

"If ya think I'm gonna beg fer ya ta wake up, girl... I don't beg anymore than ya do." He spit through clenched teeth, cradling her even harder against his chest, nesting her head onto his shoulder. "Eenesh!"

He closed his eyes against the lifeless reality of the body in his arms.

"Eenesh..."

His eyes were burning saltily when he growled, still lulling the limp body.

"I'm gonna kill'em all." It was still warm, her body! "I'm gonna..."

He could almost see himself getting up and going down the corridor to kill those two assholes before going on a rampage after the fucking Colonel, but his arms refused to let go of that warm body. It was the only sign of life in her, even if the temperature was below what a normal live body would give off. That and her lips. I mean, if your heart stops, your body stops receiving oxygen and your lips turn bluish in a few minutes. Hers were rosy! After six hours of supposed cardiac arrest! No, she was not dead. She was in some sort of... of... coma. Suspended animation. Her heart had not stopped, it had just diminished its activity to a minimum, and her whole body had shut down in order to survive with that minimum. That's why they didn't register brain activity – there's nothing like brain activity to suck up a body's oxygen – it had all been pulled into minimal levels, way beyond what machines could register. But how could he wake her up?!

He was killing them all, nonetheless. Creed carefully looked at her face again, petted her cheek. She'd been like that for six hours; she could wait five minutes while he started avenging her kidnap.

"I'll be right back, Eenesh."

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