Chapter Thirteen: Desolation

The Reaper Man fired, straight at Remy's head and the kid ducked smoothly, just as they both knew he would.

The brace of needle sharp steel spikes flew free of Remy's fingers even before he straightened from the duck and this time Scalphunter had to take evasive action. Swerving out of the way of the knives Scalphunter only had time to realise they were not charged before he was sent flying head over heels across the drying dirt by a two footed kick to the sternum.

'What took you homme? I been waitin' in de rain here!'

The Cajun flew through the air, a madly somersaulting shadow against a thunderous sky; all coat tails and hellfire eyes.

Scalphunter twisted, raising and aiming his gun instinctively. It did him no good however as before he could squeeze off a round the kid had landed on him, a silent bundle of long coat, wild hair and blazing eyes. He did not seem to care about the gun at all. His fists hammered into Scalphunter's face and it was all the older man could do to turn his head to avoid two instantly blacked eyes; as it was he felt it when two back molars were knocked from his jaw. He tasted blood and struggled to free his pinned arms to defend himself; damn but he'd forgotten how fast the kid was.

'You never write, you don' phone, mon ami, you keep dis up an' dis boy gon t'ink you don' like him no more.'

A long fingered hand curled around Scalphunter's neck as the other arm pulled back, fast and smooth as a piston, and slammed down in another punch. Scalphunter took the blow without offering resistance even as he felt his cheekbone crack. Remy's knuckles split, coated in blood, sweat, and dirt.

Unable to fire the shotgun properly at such short range Scalphunter tried to use the barrel to bludgeon the side of the kid's head and knock him loose. Remy wasn't having any of it though; he ducked the blow, grabbed hold of the gun barrel, charged it, and leapt clear of Scalphunter all in one ridiculously fast motion.

'Now homme; is dat any way to greet your old friend?'

The kid skipped away moving so lightly across the ground that his steel toed boots barely seemed to touch the dirt. He flexed his fingers and frowned down at his bloodied fist.

Scalphunter leapt to his feet, throwing the gun from him before the lividly glowing shotgun could explode in his hands. The impact of the explosion most likely would have taken most of his face and upper chest with it.

The shotgun bounced across the dirty, muddy ground spitting fuchsia sparks as it did so and then came to rest in a puddle. There was a hiss from the hot metal but that was all. It did not explode and within seconds the charge dissipated smoothly.

'What…?'

'Surprise!' Remy grinned at him; a sly mad hatter with rain tangled hair. 'Betcha didn' see dat comin', non?'

Scalphunter stared at the man before him and wondered just how he could have missed all the signs. This wasn't the kid he knew. That boy had been deceitful and devious, sure, but he had never been truly vindictive, never truly cruel. The man standing before him now grinning maliciously in his tattered trench coat darkened from the rain and slicked with gritty mud, was out for blood. Scalphunter could see it in the young man's hard gaze; he wanted nothing less than to laugh in Scalphunter's face as he killed him.

It was like looking into a distorted mirror; for the very first time Scalphunter wondered if he really knew the kid at all. Hell, Remy had been screwed around with so much over the years he doubted anyone really knew what he was capable of; least of all Remy himself. He doubted even the boss knew what the kid might be capable of.

Scalphunter rolled his shoulders as he watched the kid warily. There was a strange static-y tingling running over his chest and shoulders - like a friction burn.

Remy smiled at him and raised his right hand, thumb touching first finger lightly and Scalphunter saw that the tips of his two digits were glowing faintly. The smile grew even broader.

'Now for my next trick……'

'What the f….' the strange tingling sensation intensified creeping over Scalphunter's body starting from his shoulders and then crawling down his arms, and across the stretch of his back. Along with the tingling there was a strange sense of ticklish heat. He looked down at his coat sleeves.

'Fuck!'

His leather duster was glowing hot pink. He stared up at the kid in a moment of total surprise.

Remy laughed and dived sideways for the shotgun he had tricked Scalphunter into throwing away as the other man ripped off the coat before it blew. Scalphunter threw the coat towards the kid, trying to turn the weapon against its maker.

'Hey now, mon ami, you gon an' ruined de surprise.'

The kid fired the shotgun and the coat blew into a million particles of glowing light in midair. Not that Scalphunter had time to enjoy the spectacle; Remy had the barrel of the gun pointed in his direction and his finger was squeezing down on the trigger while pieces of the leather coat burned to pink glowing ash in the heavy, sodden air.

The kid grinned at him, sharp as a viper, 'An' now for de partin' shot.'

He fired.

Scott massaged the pounding ache between his eyes, fingers rubbing just above the rim of his visor. He had a migraine coming on for sure. Slumped in the chair in the office with his elbows on Charles' desk Scott jumped at the knock on the door.

'Come in?'

The door opened and Storm slipped inside. 'You wished to speak with me, Scott?'

'Oh yes, thanks Ororo, come in and take a seat.' He tried to pull himself together and gestured to the visitor chair on the other side of the desk.

Ororo, out of uniform and dressed in a pale lavender sarong and head scarf with white camisole, seemed to float across the carpet to settle demurely in the chair. Her cat like blue eyes watched him intently.

'You are looking pale; would you like me to relieve you so that you can rest?'

Ororo crossed one leg over the other, 'Betsy is still asleep, as is Threnody. However Hank remains confident both shall awaken soon.' Ororo's expression clouded, 'Rogue has yet to wake from the sedation however.'

Scott winced. It was nothing less than a minor miracle that they had managed to get away from the hospital without being lynched by the patients and staff. When they had found Rogue on the roof of an adjacent building she was, unsurprisingly, hysterical and Jean had had no choice but to knock her out telepathically. Hank had been keeping Rogue sedated ever since for everyone's comfort until they could figure out what to do about her. Scott silently cursed. The whole situation was a complete mess – what he wouldn't give to have the professor here now!

Shaking off wistful thinking he smiled faintly, 'Trust me Ororo there is nothing I'd like better than to go and crawl under a rock somewhere and just sleep into the next decade – but there is something important I need to talk to you about first.'

'Remy.' Ororo's expression did not shift. He nodded.

'There is something I need to ask you, though I'm pretty sure I know the answer already.' He blew out a breath, not relishing what he had to say, 'Ororo, did you know about Gambit's association with Sinister?'

Ororo always so staid and calm even under the greatest of pressures blanched and sat back momentarily in her chair, 'Sinister?'

Scott closed his eyes, not that the woman across from him could see it, 'So you didn't know.' He gathered his thoughts, 'I didn't think you had known, in fact I'm sure if you had you would have told me, but I had to be sure.'

'I do not think it is I who needs to be telling you anything.' Ororo pointed out crisply, sitting tall in the chair, 'What possible connection does Remy have with Sinister?' her gaze was intense, blue eyes emphatic. 'And how is it that you know and I did not?'

Scott raised a forestalling hand, 'Firstly Ororo, I only found out about this myself after Gambit's disappearance. Jean told me, and she had been sworn to secrecy by Charles.'

'Sworn to secrecy – Scott I do not understand.'

Scott nodded. 'I'm not sure I do either,' he admitted ruefully. He sighed and chose his words carefully. Ororo was the dry run before he dropped this bombshell on the rest of the team.

'All Jean would tell me was that Gambit confided in Charles that at some point in the past, before he joined the X-Men, he was,' Scott pursed his lips, this would be the difficult part, he sighed and tried again.

'Well…..Jean said he'd been subject to some kind of experimentation at Sinister's hands, something involving his powers. There was more to it, I could tell, but either Jean doesn't know or she isn't saying.'

Scott met Ororo's eyes, although she could not see his at all, 'The impression I have is that whatever Sinister did, Remy didn't volunteer for it.'

Ororo squeezed her eyes closed as if in pain; her long graceful hand fluttering to her chest. 'Goddess preserve us all; let it not be so,' she whispered fervently. Scott waited a moment until Ororo had internalised this new information.

'Ororo, I don't want to ask, but in light of everything that has happened, from Gambit's disappearance to Threnody's appearance and Rogue's weird behaviour,' He took a deep breath, 'Do you know what the 'Garden' is?'

Scott had spent the last hour trying to puzzle out that cryptic message Gambit had scrawled over his wall, especially since Threnody had alluded to the same thing. He could not escape the very real prospect that it was all intimately connected with Sinister, or that more bad news was just around the corner. He needed to be prepared and without concrete answers he couldn't be.

Ororo pursed her lips and looked down at her hands folded in her lap, 'Eden,' she said softly and Scott was certain he had misheard until she spoke again.

'That is the only garden I can think of that Remy might reference – the Garden of Eden.'

Scalphunter threw himself backward and rolled head over heels to avoid the gunshot. He righted himself in a predators crouch just in time to leap out of the way as another bullet opened a crater in the hard desert earth, spitting sand and grit into the air.

'C'mon now homme, it's not like you can die for good, non?' Remy pumped the shotgun and almost daintily advanced on Scalphunter.

The barrel of the gun was glowing and the smile the younger man gave his former friend was downright fiendish. 'You owe me mon ami; I figure it's your turn to bleed for me dis time.'

Another bullet and another near miss; Scalphunter rued the day he'd created that particular gun……and the day, years ago, he'd taught the kid how to use it.

'Scalphunter, sil vous plait, give it up already!' the Cajun aimed the gun for another headshot and this time he was no longer smiling, 'You owe me homme. I'm not about to let you screw me over again.'

Scalphunter didn't answer with words; instead he pulled his handgun from his ankle holster and fired off three bullets aimed for the chest. If he had been fighting any other man, at that close range, with the sun half blinding his opponent, at least one of those bullets would have come home to roost in the kid's lung. Unfortunately, Remy was not just 'any other man'.

The Cajun sidestepped the barrage of bullets with almost impish grace, bent his knees, and leapt for Scalphunter. He moved like a tiger in mid-spring; at the last instant he twisted in mid air so that he led feet first. The sun, fighting its own battle with the darkling clouds, sent shards of golden light to stripe the cracked and shattered earth. Sunlight seared over the edges of the kid's silhouette as he collided with the momentarily sun-dazzled Scalphunter.

The older man managed to deflect the high kick aimed at his head and the answering downward sweep of the long arm with the shotgun barrel swinging like a cudgel from his hand. Still the impact of that dexterous dual attack staggered him and Scalphunter was unable to fire off further shots from his handgun.

Remy vaulted over his head and landed neat as a tomcat behind him, the sun now at his back and in Scalphunter's eyes. Red pinpricks of pure rage fixed him with a cold, humourless glare.

Remy manoeuvred the shotgun for a better grip, half straightening from his crouch. His hands stroked over the glowing barrel. Scalphunter knew that the kid was visualising blowing him into bloodied pieces. It was as if all those months mentoring the kid after he left New Orleans had finally borne fruit.

The lessons in hate Remy had refused to learn then were written across every cold line and sharp angle of his face now.

'Ev'rybody always tol' dis boy he be no good – devil spawn, street trash, no good t'ief, lousy husband, not fit to dream o' somet'ing better….' The words were heated ice, squeezed from a throat locked down by unadulterated fury. It seemed like Essex was right; the kid had finally snapped.

It was only years of living on the edge that tipped Scalphunter to the slightest twitching of the kid's fingers. He readied himself to avoid the shot – and found himself wondering why he bothered.

This was what he'd always wanted for the kid, after all; to make him a killer.

'The Garden of Eden?'

Scott was sure he had misheard. Sinister he could deal with, but discussions over religion he could do without. His headache continued to pound at his temples; this was not going to be one of his better days.

'Yes,' Ororo said calmly. She seemed to hesitate and then sighed in resignation dropping her eyes, 'You do not know Remy, Scott, and you do not understand him. It is difficult for me to explain.'

The slightest quiver of annoyance ran through him, 'It wasn't for lack of trying. Damn it, Ororo, Gambit has made it very clear that he doesn't want any of us to understand him.' Scott shook his head savagely as his fist lightly pounded onto the desktop.

'I mean, Christ, if anyone on this team could understand his past with Sinister it would be me or even Jean – yet he never said a word.'

'I know.' Ororo remained calm and unperturbed; her gaze watchful and, in her own way, her expression as secretive and implacable as Gambit's perpetual poker face.

'I meant no reproach towards you, Scott. You are right; Remy does not want you to know him.'

Scott frowned. He sensed that somehow those words meant more than her tone implied.

'Why not?' he tried to swallow down his frustration and failed, 'Ororo, if I'd known about the Sinister thing earlier – well, it would have explained a helluva lot about his trust issues for a start. We could have worked with him, dealt with them as a team -'

Ororo actually smiled slightly and shook her head, 'And that is why he would never tell you, or me, or anyone.'

She looked very keenly at him, her exotic eyes rooting into his as if she could see beyond the opaque red shield of his visor. 'Tell me, Scott, do you believe in hell?'

Scott blinked. 'In the literal sense?' She nodded.

He paused trying to think seriously about the question despite the strangeness of it, 'No, no I don't believe in a literal hell.' He said eventually, 'I think hell can exist in the mind, but in the biblical sense of the burning lake and Dante's Inferno; no I don't believe in hell.'

Ororo nodded, eyes calm and unreadable, 'Remy does. He believes that there is a place called hell – what's more he believes that he is destined to spend his eternity there.' Ororo watched him with her cat eyes bright and intense, 'An eternity of pain and torment; that is what Remy believes in as strongly as he believes the sun will rise in the morning.'

Scott opened his mouth to speak and found he could think of nothing to say. He pressed his lips together and tried to place himself in Gambit's shoes; he tried to imagine what it must feel like to believe in a real hell and to believe that was what awaited you hereafter. He found the notion impossible to fathom; even accounting for all the miraculous resurrections and extraordinary things he had experienced in his life he could not accept that someone could live their life everyday believing that they were going to hell.

He stared at Ororo for a long moment and saw in her eyes that she understood his thoughts; or at least the flavour of them.

'I didn't know Gambit was religious.' He said weakly after a long moment of silence and could have kicked himself for saying something that foolish and pointless. Ororo shrugged delicately.

'He is, I suppose, a fallen Catholic, though I would say his belief does not truly fall within the structure of any organised religion.' She paused and her expression quirked, she cast an almost sly look Scott's way, head canted to the side. 'He certainly does not hold to the commandments.'

Her lips curled in a dry smile. Scott chuckled.

'Yeah I'd think he'd have a few problems with those; thou shalt not steal could be a real stumper.'

Ororo laughed with him, 'I believe that the trick is all in the interpretation.'

She shook her head and sobered before her gaze grew keen again, 'If you wish to understand Remy you must know this one thing: Remy has a god, he simply lacks faith.'

Scott frowned, 'How can you have one without the other?'

Ororo smiled faintly but her eyes were sad, 'Often I have asked myself the same question; I have yet to find an adequate answer.' She met Scott's eyes with her own uncompromising, quiet gaze.

'You are not the only one who does not understand him, Scott,' An expression of acute pain crossed her features, 'Goddess no.'

'What is it?' Scott leaned forward fascinated despite himself; he could tell she had just thought of something. Ororo looked back at him her eyes wide. She gestured with her hands as she spoke.

'Remy and I do not speak of the past. We speak of our passions and out pastimes. We go to art exhibits and galleries together and I try to convince him to quit smoking and he tries to coax me to eat meat.' She smiled faintly but her expression swiftly grew sombre.

'But…?' Scott sensed there was something Ororo had thought of but was reluctant to say. Scott frowned; it was high time Gambit's secrets were laid bare. The picture of the man he'd developed over the last month suggested that Gambit – or rather Remy Lebeau - was a totally different person than Scott, and most of the X-men, had ever imagined.

At the very least he was shaping up to be considerably more dangerous.

Ororo sighed, hands fluttering like caged birds in her lap, 'On the rare occasion Remy has spoken to me of his conviction that he is bound for hell, he would sometimes also speak of his hatred for the 'devil'.' She fluttered her hands upwards in a formless gesture as she tried to find the words.

'The way he spoke, I always suspected that he referred to a real being – someone who had hurt him and earned his hatred in the past, and a being that was a constant threat to his future.'

She looked up at Scott, hands growing still, 'I can think of no creature better suited to the title of devil than Sinister.'

The kid's face twisted in anger, and a grief that Scalphunter could never hope to understand, as he fired the gun again. Once more Scalphunter was forced to leap out of the way.

Shit, but the kid was charging the bullets inside the barrel before he fired! They were coming out of the gun like tiny rocket shells and exploding on impact.

'You know what homme?'

He demanded voice low and controlled; the rage in his eyes not yet infecting those drawled, disinterested syllables. He fired again and Scalphunter cursed the fact that his custom gun could carry so many slugs.

'You know what de worst part of it is? I mean beyond de pain an' de betrayal.'

The old mercenary avoided the shot and the heavy handed swing at his head Remy made with the barrel of the gun. So far he was keeping ahead of the attacks, but then he had a feeling Remy was just toying with him. Even when the gun ran out of bullets Remy would just charge whatever came to hand and start hurling grenades at him. The odds in this battle were in the kid's favour and always had been. Hell the kid was bloodlust crazy enough right now to beat him into a pulp with his bare hands if it came to it. Scalphunter resigned himself to death; it wasn't like it would be the first time.

The kid was still talking, but then again, he never did shut up.

'You listenin' to me, homme?'

He asked coming forward, preparing the shotgun for another round. The strange preternatural calmness, the almost deranged triviality, of his tone was not matched by his actions. Scalphunter could see the tremor in the kid's hands as they shook violently. Still he did not know what caused that tremor. The kid was deep in bloodlust territory and hesitation wasn't an issue. So what was he afraid of; Scalphunter, or himself?

'You know what really gets me, homme?'

The Cajun asked of him once more and this close Scalphunter could see that the younger man was shaking from the ends of his hair to his toes; almost like a junky in need of a fix - or like he used to before Essex fixed his powers, Scalphunter realised with no little trepidation. Remy's face was bleached of vitality and he looked……crazed.

'What kid?' Scalphunter asked because it seemed that Remy wanted, no needed, him to speak.

Remy blinked down on him; the sun peaking out through a bank of tattered late storm clouds and spreading like a ribbon of throbbing gold across the desert. The light hit the kid head on, causing him to wince. The cresting sun cast long shadows and threw the kid into a panelled cage of light and dark; he was neither one with the shadow or the light.

Shit but hadn't that always been the kid's problem? He wasn't cruel enough for Essex and he wasn't pure enough for Xavier's rabble. The kid was crucified daily on the cross of impossible expectation.

'I'm tired of it all,' the voice was small and quiet. It was not Remy at all, and yet, at the same time, it was, 'All my God damned life I been tryin' to prove y'all wrong. You know dat, right homme?'

Scalphunter heard the beseeching quality in the much younger man's voice. He nodded.

'Yeah kid; I figured that.'

He had known this kid since he was eight years old. He'd trained the boy when Lebeau cut him loose, despite the kid not remembering who he was, and he'd always seen the softness in him; the longing for acceptance that had always been Remy's greatest weakness.

Scalphunter saw now what it had reduced the kid to as the first tears streaked his dirt smeared face.

Scott Summers sucked in a breath, 'The devil is Sinister?'

Ororo nodded, 'I can imagine no better candidate.' Her frown grew pensive.

'Alright,' Scott pressed his fingertips to his forehead, 'So what does that mean? What connection does that have with the Garden of Eden - or Threnody for that matter; they both mentioned a garden.'

Ororo shook her head, 'I do not know.' Her fingers laced together in her lap, 'I may be incorrect in my interpretation; the garden may be something else. I did not know about Sinister after all.' The faintest hint of self-reproach filled her voice.

'Ororo – answer me this,' Scott said as ideas began to percolate in his mind and he drew correlations between what he knew of Gambit from observation and what he had recently found out about the man's past and philosophy. He did not like the picture he was developing one bit. Ororo looked at him expectantly.

'I will answer whatever I can, as best I can.'

Scott nodded vaguely as he tried to formulate the words of his question as he spoke. 'If Gambit felt that the devil was after him, if he thinks he's already damned and going to hell, what would he do? Would he just give in and accept it - if he's damned already?'

Ororo shook her head without hesitation, 'No Scott. He would never surrender to it. Damned he may be but I believe in my heart and soul that he has committed himself to living out the rest of his life in service to good. He will defy his fate with everything in him until he can draw breath no longer.'

Scott nodded once again feeling cold in his very veins. Christ don't let him be right; don't let him be right. Gambit couldn't really be trying to single-handedly beat Sinister at his own game - could he?

'Then what would he do, Ororo? What would he be prepared to do?' Scott pressed and saw the buried fear break free in Ororo's eyes.

'Whatever he has to do, Scott; whatever a damned soul must.'

Scalphunter watched Remy as the tears fell and found he was too empty for pity and had been for a very long time.

'Yeah kid, I know - you never wanted this life. I know that.'

Eighteen years vanished in an eye-blink. It wasn't a man of twenty-six standing above Scalphunter with a gun trained at his head any longer. Instead it was a filthy, exhausted malnourished eight year old that had no one in the world to depend on.

That phantom child locked behind Remy's eyes nodded, sick relief washing out the rage. He dropped to his knees and let the shotgun slip from his fingers.

'D'accord…..jus' wanted someone to know.' He whispered head bowed as all the fight left him. 'It's not like it matters, right?' he glanced at Scalphunter with dead eyes. 'But I jus' wanted de chance to say my piece – ev'rybody gon be judgin' me soon enough anyhow.'

'I get it kid; I get it.'

Scalphunter understood well enough; it just didn't matter. It didn't matter what Remy wanted - all that mattered was what Essex had planned for him. Remy was deluding himself thinking he had a choice. He was a street-rat thief; he was Essex's property, just like Scalphunter himself. That was all there was to it.

Red eyes stared at him; squinting in the sun as if the kid was struggling to keep him in focus.

'I'm tired of it, mon ami, I'm jus' so tired of tryin' to play by dere rules.' A shaking hand rose to his eyes and scrubbed at the tears, only managing to rub grit and dust into the tear tracks.

'De rules are fixed, de cards marked…..dere be no way I can win no matter how hard I try.'

Sunlight danced on the surface of the shallow mud puddles scattered around the two men and cast long, distorted shadows across the emptiness. The terrible stillness of the desert pressed down on both their heads.

'Dey will never let me win…..if'n I play de game dere way.' A dull eyed resolution seemed to fill the void in the kid's gaze. He turned to look straight at Scalphunter.

'So I guess I'm gon have to change de rules, non? Can't be de good guy, ain't got no will to be de villain - gon have to change de rules to fit, oui?'

Desolation was replaced by a hard jawed determination that had always been lacking in the kid before now. Remy had never lacked the skill or the smarts to be the ruthless professional Essex wanted and Scalphunter had tried to train him to be, but he'd always lacked the desire and, yeah, he'd also lacked the cold-blooded hate to turn his back on the world.

Now it seemed despair would do what hate and hardship had failed to do - and give Remy to Sinister completely.

Scalphunter said nothing, for there was nothing to say; it was about time the kid accepted what his life was. He'd be happier once he gave up hoping for something better. Hoping only ever lead to pain; Scalphunter had learnt that years before he'd ever met Essex and it seemed like Remy had finally come around to the truth.

Another man would have seen the tragedy; Scalphunter was beyond such things.

The silence stretched as Scalphunter watched the young man before him lose all his hope one choked breath after the other while the sun sat above their heads, impassive and indifferent, pouring down heat that did not warm. The cracked and arid ground began to heat and the dust to bake. The shadows stretched long and thin and omnipresent across the empty plain and still there was only silence.

The first harsh sob from the kid did not so much break the silence, but instead seemed to enforce it. Remy dug his blood stained fingers into the gritty dirt and hung his head; still too proud to show the tears. His voice was muffled by his posture when he spoke again.

'I'm tired o' failin'…..tired o' tryin to care, an' love, an' have faith and do all dat shit folks say you gotta do to live a good life,' he shook his head in counterpoint to the withering contempt heavy in his voice but still he did not look up, 'I'm tired o' gettin' beat down for not bein' fucking good enough.'

The sun, one hard white eye, continued to glare down on them as the shadows crept like thieves over the rocks in the desert. Way back on the distant highway the occasional car and semi-articulated truck roared by – but those were sights and sounds from another world.

Scalphunter only watched as the kid slumped down on his side onto the wet dust and curled in on himself like a man shielding a mortal wound. Remy palmed his face in his hands and wept brokenly then. Scalphunter continued to do nothing but stand witness.

Essex had said the kid would crack eventually. Hell the boss had planned for it. All that guilt and blame that Essex had carefully and deliberately nurtured inside the kid's head, had finally taken its toll.

The kid had given up.

Scalphunter had always wondered if Remy might have the strength, or sheer deluded stubbornness, to beat Essex's head games; especially after he survived the massacre, an act of senseless violence designed by the boss to drive Remy insane with guilt. Now however he saw that Essex was right – that Essex was always right.

It had only ever been a matter of time.

Moved by some alien and almost completely forgotten desire to comfort, Scalphunter reached out to touch the shaking shoulder. Remy's hands dropped from his face and he blinked up at Scalphunter as one of his hand wrapped, almost furtively, around Scalphunter's wrist.

The red eyes fixed on his. 'Do you ever get tired o' it all homme?'

The hand gripping his wrist tightened fractionally but Scalphunter did not fight the grip anymore now than he would have bothered to shake off the eight year old child he had found all those years ago.

'Sure kid, all the time.'

Scalphunter shrugged. In truth he was beyond tired. He no longer noticed the howling emptiness in his soul. He did not bother to watch the kid's other hand as it drifted down to his trench coat covered hip.

Remy's lips twitched in an expression too remote to be a smile and something sparked in the depths of his eyes that alarmed Scalphunter for a moment; it was only then that he realised, despite the noisy sobbing of moments ago, that Remy's eyes were dry as desert bones.

'D'accord…..dat was all I needed to know.'

Scalphunter's instincts screamed danger – but he was already caught. The Cajun's eyes burned into his. It was then, a fraction of a second after it was too late, that the old mercenary realised his mistake. The kid was already in motion.

Remy moved too fast for Scalphunter to do anything but blink. Like a serpent coiling back along his own body length Remy surged upwards, his one hand holding Scalphunter's immobile while the other came free from the fold of his trench coat.

The sunlight flashing off the evaporating puddles caught upon the flat of the hunting knife in the kid's hand as it slashed in a broad sweeping sideways arc to find a sheath in the side of Scalphunter's neck.

'Urk….' Blood bubbled from his lips but he felt no pain. The charge of the kid's powers cauterised the wound and filled Scalphunter's body with a tingling fission that burned away any pain that could have overcome the initial numbing shock.

'You never did know me, homme.' There was no triumph in the kid's voice; it was flat and dead as the desert air. 'Did you t'ink I'd break dat easy? Did you t'ink I'd ever let dat monster use me again?'

All Scalphunter could do was stare into Remy's eyes as the kid rose onto his knees still holding the knife in one hand and Scalphunter's wrist in the other.

The fire in the kid's eyes was familiar to Scalphunter. He had seen it every day in the shaving mirror. It was the cold burn of a killer; the ice and fire of a man who can pull down on the trigger when a mark's begging on his knees for mercy and not even blink.

It was the look of a Marauder. It was a look Scalphunter had never thought to see in Remy's eyes.

'Dis is war, mon ami. I ain't never lettin' Essex make me his weapon again.' It was a whisper on the winds of death. Scalphunter slumped forward against the kid's body. Remy's other hand dropped his wrist and came around his body in a dark parody of an embrace.

Scalphunter felt death's approach creep over him and knew he would be dead within the minute. He could not muster the energy to care. The only regret he felt was for the little boy he'd once known, the child he had betrayed twice to Sinister. The child he still saw in the cold red eyes as they watched his life depart him from mere inches away.

'Need you to do something for me, mon ami,' Remy said as the world faded into a thousand screaming specks of grey oblivion before Scalphunter's eyes, 'When you see Essex, tell him: dat I'll be seeing him real soon.'

Remy twisted the blade savagely once before he wrenched the knife from Scalphunter's throat. Scalphunter died then with neither a whimper nor a scream. For the longest time Remy simply knelt there in the dirt and blood looking into the man once called Grey Crow's lifeless eyes. Above his head the sun continued to burn, but he could not feel its heat.

'Goodbye mon ami,' he whispered salt tears falling upon the slack features of the dead man. He raised the hand still clutching the knife and stared at the blood slicked blade thrumming with energy. He gritted his teeth and refused to let any more tears fall.

'I'm sorry.' He let the body slide from his arms and dropped the knife unto the parched and cracked desert floor. The knife glowed in the dirt as the charge spread out around the blade.

Scalphunter's body hit the dirt a second later and his blood mingled with mud to run weakly through the cracks in the earth. His empty eyes stared at nothing as the man in the long coat strode away with the midday sun at his back and his shadow before him.

Seconds later the charge that had spread from the knife into the molecules of the rock and the pores of Scalphunter's dead flesh, ignited. The explosion was silent and when the dust settled there was nothing to mark Scalphunter's resting place save a huge gaping wound in the red Arizona rock.

Far away and over the flat dead air, the growl of a motorbike punctured the silence. Scalphunter's killer rode away and never once looked back.