. VII .
*******************
Thirteen hours and forty-nine minutes later, Remy LeBeau would suddenly realise that he had made a very bad mistake. It had to be a mistake, one more in a long list of many, and he didn't want to believe it.
He stood with the gun in his hand, heavy as a dead weight; heavy, cold, and immutably alien. One finger, numb with rainwater, trembled on the trigger. And the woman, horrendous, inhuman as her naked body damned her to be, gazed back up at him with wide and staring eyes, terrified, bewildered, pleading. Beneath her lay a single card – the Queen of Diamonds, a stark testament to this, his final betrayal
Only then did he understand what the phrase meant – 'redemption through sacrifice.'
Only he understood too late.
Behind him, Eileen stumbled into the grove like a woman fated, hair wet and bedraggled, her expression emerging from the shadows, aghast, pale as a ghost. She lifted her torch and stared at him.
"Oh my God," she croaked. "Anna…"
**************************
*
That morning had heralded some sort of respite from the rain; from the sounds of the weather forecasts, it was all set to change again by the late afternoon, and another wave of torrential storms would be coming in from the east. Since room #102 didn't have a TV or radio on, neither Rogue nor Remy would know about it until it happened – in their world, now, the morning is the morning and it could go on forever, just like this; sun shining with a pale, watery glow, the thickness of the afternoon's humidity not quite yet in the air. Such is the definition of the morning, according to the blissfully ignorant, those who have not yet been contaminated by the baleful omens of the weatherman.
To tell the truth, neither Rogue nor Remy really cared much about the weather that morning, or even about the weather that afternoon. Both were locked in their own private little domains; it seemed reasonable, seeing as they'd partaken of one another so intimately the night before.
Remy was locked in his own little world simply because he assumed that he was the only one awake. No one ever rightly knew what went on in his mind – he had, Professor Charles Xavier had once concluded, 'thoughts like quicksilver'[1] – yes, even the most powerful telepath in the world had admitted that! And yes, Remy enjoyed it, he enjoyed riling the Professor, and Jean, and poor, poor Betsy. (Although Betsy had, ironically, come closest to penetrating his deepest, darkest secret, the mechant fille). Not to mention Sage – oh, how he loved to drive Sage mad! But whatever he was thinking now, as he leant with his butt against the back of Eileen's favourite chair, engrossed in the local newspaper and drinking coffee, was anyone's guess. What Remy's private world consisted of – besides gambling, women, kleptomania and women – was a veritable mystery.
Rogue liked to wonder what was going on in his mind. She would often stare at him, when he was engaged in something else and when she knew he wouldn't know she was looking. Right now, her own private little world consisted of one thing, and it was called Remy. She had woken up five minutes earlier thinking he would still be lying beside her and had felt a little grumpy, when, rolling over, she'd seen him standing there by the window, leaning with his butt against the back of Eileen's favourite chair, engrossed in the local newspaper and drinking coffee. Normally, his mind was as inscrutable to her as Mississippi mud – not to mention her own muddled past. It was only at times like these that she would catch a glimpse of his thoughts, in a blink of an eye, in a twitch of the lips, in a crease of the brow – although what she saw in these imprecise signals she could never put a name to. That was the fun of the game. That was why she was lying huddled in bed with only her face poking out from under the duvet, staring at him.
Her study of him that morning had, however, quickly degenerated. At first, she had considered the dark rings around his eyes – he was tired, and more than that, troubled. That had worried her. And the shape of his mouth – so grim! That meant he was hiding something from her. (Yes, Rogue knew that particular look; she'd seen it often enough.) And the way he held the edge of the paper between his index and middle finger, toying with it lightly; that meant he was dying for a smoke. Rogue had frowned at that.
Then she'd inevitably become distracted by the fact that he was shirtless, and how much she loved it when he'd go around shirtless, although she'd never admit it to him; she thought he knew the truth anyway, because he was so damn good at seeing right through her. And goddammit she loved his stomach, his outrageously well-toned stomach, the kind that Calvin Klein's were made for, the kind that made you want to go right down there and do things…
She stifled a giggle and hugged the duvet to her mouth. He, however, wasn't to be fooled and casually glanced at her over the top of his newspaper – he seemed to be more alert than usual that deceptively transitory summer morning.
"So Gambit looks funny dis mornin', neh?" he greeted her, a knavish grin lighting his face. She couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled at her like that – while he was sober anyhow. It sent delicious shivers up her spine. She pulled the duvet away from her face.
"Gambit looks jus' fine," she replied discerningly. It amused her the way he had a habit of referring to himself in the third person.
"O' course he does," he retorted, feigning annoyance and lifting the paper again, although he made no attempt to hide the small smile on his lips. It made her bold.
"Remy, come back t' bed," she whined.
"Been in bed all mornin', chere," he answered, not looking at her. "It's time you got up, mon 'tit chou-chou."
"But you're s'pposed to wait until ah wake up," she pouted. "Ah want t' hug you, dammit."
"Den get outta bed and hug me here," he returned. It was not hard to catch the distracted note to his voice; she knew it was useless arguing with him. Frowning, and feeling a little put out, she slid out of bed and pulled on her underwear. Looking at the clock, she saw that it was nearly midday. Had she really been sleeping in that long? She yawned. What she needed was a big cup of coffee. Last night seemed to be one big void to her – apart from making love to Remy, of course. She got the faint impression that at some point she'd been dreaming, but anything more than that she couldn't remember. She hooked her bra pensively. The dreams, so frayed that they appeared inconsequential, clung to her mind like tattered cobwebs. If only they wouldn't bother her so…
She gasped as Remy's arms came up stealthily from behind and encircled her waist, breaking her train of thought. She had been so absorbed in her reverie that she hadn't even heard him put down his paper and crawl across the bed on his knees to embrace her.
"I'm sorry," he apologised humbly, planting a tender kiss behind her ear. "Didn't mean to treat you so harsh, chere."
"It's okay," she replied, leaning her head back against his shoulder, her troubles abruptly forgotten. "Ah've been sleepin' in all mornin' when ah'm usually up with the sunrise." She sighed. "Ah can't tell you how much ah miss flyin', Remy. Now ah ain't got nothin' t' do but stay in bed."
"We can go back t' bed, if y' want," he murmured into her hair. "Nowhere else I'd rather be right now."
She chuckled and swivelled round to face him. "What you need is some rest, Cajun," she told him archly, placing her hands on his cheeks and pressing her nose to his own. "You didn't sleep at all last night, did you?" she added with concern. "Why don't you tell me what's worryin' you? You ain't been sleepin' proper ever since we got here."
He was doing that thing with his mouth again. Screwing it up, like crumpled paper, the way he always did when he didn't want to come clean with her. She stared at him until she knew he would give in.
"Last night dat psycho was scheduled to take out his next victim, Roguey," he said after a moment. "An' I just can't help t'inkin' dat it's all my fault, chere, dat it's me who's responsible for what happened t' all dose poor women."
"That's crazy talk, Remy," she cut him off gently. "You're not t' blame for what happened t' them. There wasn't anythin' you could've done about it. Ah know how involved you've been gettin' into this whole sorry affair, Remy, but it ain't your business. You can't let it take over your life."
"De killer's makin' it my business," he muttered darkly, his brow furrowed with such distress that it surprised her. "An' what if he didn't kill last night, chere? What if he's still hangin' around, what if he ain't goin' t' let up until he's got what he wants?"
"Then there's nothin' we can do about it," she answered simply. "Eileen an' the others will sort it out. It ain't got nothin' t' do with us."
Remy remained silent. He could not tell Rogue what he knew; much less because of the fact that if he did so, he would be admitting that he was indeed responsible, not only for the lives of those other women, but for her own. If the killer did indeed know his mind, then somehow Remy's misconceived resentment towards Rogue had taken on a life of its own in the mind of the murderer. Remy had condemned her, and she didn't even know it. Last night had only provided her a stay of execution – he knew that now. He could protect her, guard her with the life that she had given back to him – but it would not be enough. So long as the killer was alive, it would never be enough.
"Remy," Rogue continued, stroking his face affectionately when his expression still remained troubled. "It's going to be okay. We're together now. It's what we've always wanted, to be away from that crazy mansion and those crazy people, and to just be normal. For once, we get t' be selfish. An' ah don't even care about what's goin' on outside anymore. All ah care 'bout is us."
She paused, and both were suddenly aware that their scars touched, that they were locked in the same space they had occupied the moment that Vargas' sword had driven through them. It was a reminder that, whatever happened, as long as those scars lasted they would be one, symbiotic creatures in both love and pain.
"You're right, ma chere," he spoke up quietly. "Dis Cajun, he's been couyon[2]. So long as we stay together, everyt'ing's gonna be all right. An' I ain't never gon' leave you, Rogue. Not never."
He kissed her, their talisman, their last defence.
From what?
Neither knew, nor cared.
Later, the rain came along to shatter their fragile conception of the morning. But by that time, their conception was only of one another.
******************************
For the first time in weeks, Remy slept soundly, well into the evening. Rouge sat, cross-legged, on the bed beside him, watching the TV on mute. Local channel, local news, local murders that shouldn't happen to 'good people', whoever they were; rumours that the FBI were coming in. Rogue flicked the channel, absently leaning forward to delicately brush away a stray strand of hair from the face of her slumbering lover. She yawned, gently running a finger over the scar on his chest, meditating on the events of the past week. It was something of a miracle that he slept. But lovers always work miracles. She had held him, and stroked his hair, and cradled his head in her bosom until he couldn't say no to her; not one word of protest he had made, before he had finally succumbed to sleep. The storm outside had merely been their lullaby.
Next: the world news on CNN. Anti-mutant riots in major cities across the globe, New York, London, Rome, Berlin; an exposé on the Paris branch of X-Corporation; flooding kills hundreds of Chinese peasants living on the banks of the Yangtse River; a special report on the psychological effects of child abuse…
Rogue shuddered and switched off the TV. The knock at the door, as if prompted by stage-cue, followed.
Rogue got up to answer it, but Remy was faster, suddenly leaping out of bed like a wildcat, pulling his pants back on, and darting across the room. Rogue simply gaped at him. She was absolutely certain that he'd been completely out for the count only a few seconds ago. And now he was leaping about at the faintest sound like his life depended on it?
"What the hell d'you think you're doin'?" she inquired archly, before he had reached the door. It disconcerted her to think that his nerves were still so frayed that he could hear a knock at the door in his sleep. "Ah'm perfectly capable of answerin' the door mahself, y'know."
"I know, chere," he answered quickly, before pushing on the door handle. "But dat maniac's already been round here once, an' I'm not lettin' him take any chances wit' you."
He was somewhat disappointed then, to see the nondescript Dom Jones standing in the doorway.
"So I'm the killer now, am I?" the bespectacled CSI remarked with some amusement, evidently having caught the tail end of Remy's speech.
"My poppa tol' me never t' trust no cops," Remy replied, looking the shorter man up and down coolly. "'Sides, wasn't it you who said de killer always returns t' de crime scene?"
"This isn't a crime scene," Jones answered smoothly, but with a lack of finesse that even he felt self-conscious of. "And I'm not a cop. Besides, Ms. Harsaw sent me. Urgent stuff. She's in a state right now. She wants you to go down and see her right away."
"Eileen in a state?" Remy raised a well-marked eyebrow. "Dat's twice in two days. Femme mus' be headin' for a nervous breakdown."
"What's happened?" Rogue asked, coming up from behind and seeing the solemn look on Jones' face. Remy had heard her rustling about in the background, but her expression was now suspiciously unflustered. "Is she all right?"
"Pretty much," Jones replied dourly, passing Rogue an oddly assessing look. "Apart from the fact that last night another girl went missing."
Remy stared at him sharply.
"What?"
"Fourth vic, we're guessing," Jones returned. "Except now it seems she isn't a vic – yet."
"What do you mean?" Rogue asked.
"Guy left another encoded message for Remy here, right in the place he abducted her. Sounds like he's playing a game. It seems to imply the whereabouts of the girl. Ms. Harsaw asked for me to fetch you right away. She said you'd better come and see what it said."
Remy lent into the doorframe, pounding his fist into the jamb. What the hell was the murderer playing at? Was he taunting him because Remy had thwarted his plan to make Rogue his next victim? Or had Remy just jumped to conclusions about that? Did the killer have some other trick up his sleeve? The hand he'd dealt Remy wasn't exactly a good one. From here on in, he'd have to bluff his next move.
"All right," he said at last. "We'll play dis son of a bitch's fucked up game. I just hope you're wrong 'bout dis, and dat dis girl's life ain't lyin' in my hands."
"We'll see," Dom rejoined calmly.
"An' what about me?" Rogue asked from the sidelines.
Remy thought about it. Taking into consideration yesterday's episode, he didn't want to have to put her through anymore stress than she'd been through already – by all accounts, she ought to have been in bed resting herself, if he'd had things his way. But he couldn't risk having her out of his sight, not for one moment. Not with that maniac loose. He'd neglected her enough as it was.
"I'm sorry, chere," he said at last. "I'd feel better 'bout t'ings if I had you wit' me."
She grinned wryly at him. "Are you kiddin'? Ah'm comin' with you, Cajun, whether you like it or not."
***********************************
The 'message' had comprised of three cards.
Eileen had spread them out on the backseat of her car, while the rain probed the roof of this, their seeming last bastion against the world. The cards were old, ostentatious, French. Sixteenth century. The Death card was the message's florid opening, the emblem that signified that this was for Remy's eyes only. Then there was the Queen of Wands, victim #4 of course, a red-haired woman, imperious, her hand resting upon the spotted crest of a tame, almost servile leopard. And in-between the two, coupling both catalyst and victim, lay the murderer's modus operandi. The Hanged Man.
Remy had simply stared at it, uncomprehending. The picture on the card meant nothing to him, except that it aroused in him a vague feeling of uneasiness. The singular image was of a man, tied upside down to a tree by his feet. It was a parody of death, or so it seemed – a state of inertia, a state of suspension. For who could truly die by being strung up from the feet? From the deep recesses of his Catholic upbringing, Remy had remembered the story of St. Peter, how he'd been nailed to a cross upside down and had stayed there for absolute days before giving in to the inevitable end. Days.
However, according to Eileen's infernal book, the Hanged Man was the Death card proper. 'Redemption through sacrifice. Enforced sacrifice. Suffering. Loss, defeat, failure'. That was what the book had to say about their predicament. To Remy, those were more than just bad odds. If he had known that the book had also said 'deception, misconception, illusion', then later, looking into those pale, staring eyes with his finger on the trigger, perhaps he would have laughed at his own stupidity.
"You're t'inkin' de girl is still alive?" Remy asked the head CSI from the backseat of the car. Eileen's eyes remained on the road, the shadow of the windscreen wiper intermittently slicing her face into viscous strips of black and colour.
"Her body hasn't been found," she replied evenly. "And from what we've seen so far, the killer only leaves cards with dead bodies. But now we have a different situation. He leaves the message in the place where he abducts his prey – in her house. He leaves the Death card, which means he's talking to you. He leaves the Queen of Wands, which means he's referring to his victim. They're both simply the players in his game. It's the Hanged Man that's the clue. It's the message. It's the one thing that this entire game pivots on."
Remy looked outside the window as they approached the old forest. The murky outline of the trees masked the horizon like a blot of black ink. He stroked the stubble on his chin pensively.
"The Hanged Man means a sacrifice," he spoke softly. "So the killer abducts his next victim and leaves a message written specifically for me. He wants me t' go be a part of his sick game. He wants me t' watch de sacrifice." He turned to look at Eileen's face in the rear-view mirror, eyes flashing. "Why me, Eileen?" he asked.
"As far as I can work out, the bastard has a certain empathy with you," she returned wryly. "He thinks you understand him. He thinks he understands you."
"Y' mean t' say, he t'inks dat I want him t' go round killin' women?" he retorted in disbelief.
"Who knows what the nutcase thinks," she muttered in reply.
They pulled over outside the forest and got out of the car. Dom Jones slammed the passenger door shut and looked up. The fleshy glint of the trees' canopies glimmered in the headlights of the car. For some reason, in the rain and the dark, the trees seemed to be taller, more impenetrable.
"This is it," he said, squinting his eyes from behind his thick-rimmed glasses.
The Hanged Man, of course, had had a double meaning. Jones had understood it almost immediately, recounting in that flat, vapid tone of his, tales from the early days of the pioneers, tales of how this forest on the edge of town was famous for being the home of the old Hanging Tree. Over the centuries, the tree had been used to lynch everyone from suspected witches to blacks to child molesters to mutants. Tonight was to be a momentous occasion in the history of the Hanging Tree. Blood was not going to be spilt in the noble causes of justice and righteousness, oh no. This time it was going to be murder, pure and simple.
Not unless Remy had anything to do with it.
"Remind me why I'm here," he muttered, looking up into the impermeable layer of trees. He dug his hands into his pockets. Beside him, Rogue was standing in the rain, eyes focused on some indeterminable space in mid-air, silent as she had been the entire journey so far. He furtively reached out to stroke the back of her hand tenderly, as much for his own encouragement as hers. The softness of her skin grounded him, gave him some sense of assurance. Nevertheless, for once he shared her misgivings about ever having left the relative comfort of the motel at all.
"Obviously he wants you to go to the Hanging Tree to meet him," Eileen stated matter-of-factly, bringing out torches from the back of the car and handing one to each of them. "All you have to do is go down there and find out why. We suspect the girl is still alive. If you go in alone, do what he says and don't threaten him in any way, then maybe she'll stay that way."
"I take it you and de cops are gonna be hangin' round as back-up," Remy returned sullenly. He was feeling irrationally peevish about that. He didn't mind working with superheroes. He didn't even mind falling in with supervillains, if it seemed a good idea at the time. But working with the cops – something about that was inherently heinous. If the Guilds ever found out about this his reputation would be ruined right quick.
"I've had the police stationed covertly at several points outside the wood," Eileen returned, mopping water from her forehead. "And they'll give us the necessary back-up should we need it. Jones will be our contact."
"So what exactly d'you want me t' do?" Remy asked her. "Chat wit' de guy? 'Hi, I'm Remy LeBeau, ex-t'ief, an' you might be Mr So-an'-So, murderer'?"
"Do whatever's necessary," Eileen replied dryly, ignoring the sarcastic comment. "You're supposed to have a way with words anyway, aren't you? Besides, if things start getting hairy you needn't worry. I'll be ghosting you and monitoring your progress." She smiled grimly and pulled aside her raincoat, displaying the gun in the holster at her belt. "I'll also be armed."
"Hm," Remy gave her a lop-sided smile. "Since it's rainin' an' all, I thought you'd be able to give him a nice zap wit' dose electric powers o' yours."
She shook her head but conceded a half smile.
After that, the four of them had entered into the woods.
They had followed Jones, who knew the way to their destination unknown. Remy didn't like it anymore than he trusted the bespectacled man, but said nothing. He felt unaccountably like a pig being led to the slaughter. Not just because of what inevitably lay on the other end of their journey, but also because he had no conception of where they were being led. They could have been in a labyrinth, for all he knew. And he had no Ariadne to provide the golden thread that would mark his way out of the maze. He only had his wits. And the perceived affinity that the killer presumed they shared.
The wood was dense. Someone had beaten a pathway before them, but even now, it had begun to grow over, and for long stretches brush and bracken would hinder their progress. The darkness was so thick the torchlight barely pierced it. The rain, though less heavy than it was outside of the forest, had begun to bite into their clothing, remorseless. Remy had started to lag behind, not out of fear, but rather cold and exhaustion. His sense of disorientation bewildered him.
"Remy."
Rogue was suddenly walking beside him, her hand on his arm. That was when he realised that he did have an Ariadne; if he became lost, she was the reason to find a way out again. Their nebulous connection was his golden thread. He felt guilty, having forced her out into the stormy night and into the woods – but then, he couldn't afford to leave her alone in the car out on the road and away from his watchful eye. He also knew that she wouldn't have let him go anywhere without her anyway.
"I'll be okay, chere," he assured her with a smile he knew did not reach his eyes, and which she, nevertheless, could not see. Her hand tightened on his arm, urgent. He stopped, turning to face her. In the pallid torchlight, he saw the fire in her green eyes, an expression a thousand times more eloquent than words.
"Roguey, I'm doin' the right t'ing," he reassured her again.
"Ah know," she replied quietly, holding his gaze with a ferocity that told him that there was something more she wanted to say but could not. Then, impulsively, she reached out and wound her right hand into his hair, pulled his lips to hers and kissed him fiercely. Her left hand, however, surreptitiously pressed the gun into his open palm. The weight of it hung in his hand a moment, ominous, the difference between life and death.
He dropped it into his trenchcoat pocket.
Little did either of them know how that small action would seal both their fates.
"Do you mind?" Jones hissed back at them irritably.
********************
'Redemption through sacrifice.'
From the very beginning, this whole thing had been about redemption. Remy had thought that, bleeding and near death in Madripoor, he was gaining the ultimate redemption for a lifetime of sins. His life was the sacrifice. But Rogue had pulled him back, unknowing. She had made her own sacrifice in order to bring him back to another kind of redemption – her love. The killer, an imperfect mind-reader, knew only two of the elements of the story that was Remy LeBeau – redemption and sacrifice. Perhaps all this killing was simply a reflection of what the murderer thought he knew. Perhaps the killings were the sacrifices. Perhaps each death was a release, another step on the pathway towards redemption.
But why?
Remy had left his own form of redemption back on the path. Rogue had passed him a smile, the kind they'd often shared back in the old days, the confederate smile of a partner-in-crime. He'd taken Jones aside and told him, in no uncertain terms, that if any harm came to her, he'd end up wishing the murderer would come and put him out of his misery. Jones had given him one of those inscrutable, maddening looks that he often wore. Then Eileen had dragged him away, further away from terra firma and back towards destination unknown.
The gun had weighed heavily in his coat pocket. It was the reason Rogue had given him that smile, the smile that told him everything was going to be all right. This was a situation not to his liking – he had never been powerless like this before, never been without the heavy reliance on his mutation in order to survive. It had taken several minutes for him to realise that he didn't even really know how to use a gun. He could've asked Eileen. But she had left his side long ago, and even though he knew she was there somewhere behind him, there was no evidence of her presence, not even a sigh, not even a rustle.
Something was wrong. He knew it. It didn't make sense. So far there had been three sacrifices – death by earth, air and water. But the killer had suddenly broken the pattern. And serial killers didn't do that without good reason. All right, so Remy had forced him to break the pattern. His next planned victim, Anna Raven, had been stolen from him. So he had had to choose another girl. But death by hanging? Why not by fire, the original, logical method? Why spoil the ritual sacrifice any more than it had been spoiled already?
Something wasn't right. Something was wrong. He should have turned back. He didn't.
The Hanging Tree loomed out from the centre of a small copse like the gnarled, twisted silhouette of the Old Hag. Tante Mattie had often told tales of her when he was a boy, how she'd jump on your chest while you slept and would ride you, so that you couldn't move, so that you couldn't fight, or even breathe. Remy had never scared easily, even as a kid. But now, as he shone the torch up the dark, wet trunk of the old tree, his heart skipped a beat and he knew it was fear inside him.
Hanging from a branch, tied to the bough by the ankles, swung the trussed up body of a naked woman, unreal, waxen with the eerie lifelessness of an undressed Victorian doll.
Instinct and horror caused him to avert the light of torch from the pale white husk of the dangling corpse; the circle of brightness swerved into the bushes dripping rainwater like tears. He approached the tree slowly in the darkness, hardly realising that he was neglecting to breathe, stopping only when his foot was sucked into a quagmire of sodden earth with a loud, sudden squelch. The body of the woman swung provocatively, beckoning him with the hypnotic rhythm of a pendulum. He moved forward, extricating his foot from the slush, his right hand moving instinctively to the gun in his pocket. Only force of will stopped him from drawing it out of pure fear. It was only when he stood before the impermeable black outline of the body that he slowly trailed the torchlight upward, with the dread expectancy of one who walks to the gallows.
It was her face that seemed to encroach upon the light, not the other way round – a face strangely divorced from the backdrop of tree and night and rain, so that he wouldn't even have thought she was anything more than a puppet hanging on a string. This was not like looking at Lizzie Brown – this was grotesque, a parody of death, a morbid performance. The pasty hue of her skin obliterated the features of her thirty-something face. Her hair, wet and straggled from the rain, was damp to the point that he could not tell its colour. But her eyes were closed. Her eyelashes were tipped with beads of water so it appeared she had been crying.
The killer, however, was nowhere to be seen.
Remy dropped the circle of light from the non-face.
"I'm here!" he called. No answer. Only the rhythmical patter of rain through leaves offered a reply. He took a step back, his sense of apprehension increasing unbidden. Something was definitely wrong…
He took out the gun with the stealth of the thief, with the stealth of the dead.
"I'm here!" he called out again, and the sound of his own voice made him bolder. "So if you wanna keep carryin' on dis sick game, y' jus' show yourself, y'hear?!"
The puppet on the tree groaned.
At first Remy was stunned to hear so corporeal a sound issue from the un-woman's lips. He swung the torchlight back onto the body, now gently swaying in the night, sinister and elegant as Nosferatu hanging bat-like from the beams of his sprawling castle. What he saw terrified him even more than any corpse he might have seen, for the amorphous face had now gained some token of character – the green eyes were now open.
He stood with the gun in his hand, heavy as a dead-weight; heavy, cold, and immutably alien. One finger, numb with rainwater, trembled on the trigger. And the woman, horrendous, inhuman as her naked body damned her to be, gazed back up at him with wide and staring eyes, terrified, bewildered, pleading. And beneath her lay a single card – the Queen of Diamonds, a stark testament to this, his final betrayal. Not the Queen of Wands but the Queen of Diamonds, his Queen of Diamonds.
Only then did he understand what the phrase meant – 'redemption through sacrifice.' It meant that the hanging woman was a decoy, a deception, an end to an even greater means, a necessary sacrifice for that of the ultimate prize. The killer wasn't there. He'd played them – all of them – for fools. He'd set them up, and now, with both Remy and Eileen out of the way, he was free to capture his real prey, the prey Remy had left ten minutes back the way he had come from, in the care of the steady, reliable, nondescript CSI – Dominic Jones.
Rogue.
Behind him, Eileen stumbled into the grove like a woman fated, hair wet and bedraggled, her expression emerging from the shadows, aghast, pale as a ghost. She lifted her torch and stared at him.
"Oh my God," she croaked. "Anna…"
***********************************
[1] Uncanny X-Men #276. Well, technically it wasn't Xavier, but what the hey…
[2] Stupid; idiotic.