ALPHA/OMEGA

Book Two

NINE

"There." Storm pointed. Her graceful arm indicated an apparently natural jumble of rocks. "There's a hidden door."

Wolverine nodded. "Right. Is there somewhere you can put down the Jet nearby?"

"About two hundred yards down the hillside, there's a clearing. I can land there."

"Good. Nightcrawler, mark the spot for your jumps. Carl, have you got --" He spotted the knives already in the teacher's hands. "Good." Nightcrawler took the knives with a miserable expression, unhappy with the violent implications. Wolverine watched Carl ready his equipment. Several safety latches were undone. Carl rolled his shoulders, then resettled his coat. He looked up at Wolverine, but his expression revealed nothing of his thoughts.

"We've gone into a bunch of hostile situations before. Are you sure you're gonna be OK with this?" Wolverine asked, apparently uncertain of the skills in the man before him.

Carl's expression turned baleful as Storm set the Jet down smoothly. "I've gone into hairier situations than this."

"When?" Wolverine earned no points with that, since Carl's stare went from cool to frigid.

"Constantly from 1888 to 1896. Besides, I was taught by the best."

"Who?"

Clearly furious, Carl stepped right up to Wolverine, his posture deliberately threatening. "You!" he snarled. He turned sharply and started down the ramp to the woods.

Wolverine started to follow, but hands grabbed him. He discovered that Storm hung onto one arm, Nightcrawler on the other.

"Don't go in angry!" Storm said quickly. "What's between you two has to wait."

"He vill be fine," Nightcrawler whispered. "Zere is a power in him now. He is dangerous." Wolverine frowned down at the blue mutant, who shrugged. "He hass still the righteousness of one who doez God's vork. Do not vorry."

"Hey. Are we going now or what?" Carl called from outside the Jet, his voice aggrieved.

-----------

Nightcrawler wasn't kidding, Wolverine thought as he kept half an eye on Carl. The other man moved silently and smoothly. Without even thinking about it, he and Wolverine seemed to have their own sign language, one signaling to the other without words, the other reacting to those signals with practiced ease. Wolverine found himself wanting a weapon of some sort in his hands, uncomfortable for the first time he could remember with just his hands and claws. Nightcrawler followed quietly behind, letting them lead.

Carl's face lost its angry tension as they carefully explored Magneto's underground compound. He began to concentrate on their mission, and the resumption of a familiar, hundred-year-old partnership was oddly soothing. Once he'd remembered his position as a hunter, he'd made sure to always keep himself prepared for the possibility he'd become a hunter once again. And now that possibility had become reality. One of the Barrettas sat easily in his right hand. He carried a low-light flashlight in the other.

The X-Men checked every nook and cranny they found. Some were merely dead ends, hardly even qualifying as caves. Others had the look of use, as storerooms, or even living quarters. All were deserted. Finally, they found themselves walking through a definite corridor. Carl stopped suddenly, finding a genuine door in the rock. He signaled the others to wait as he nudged the door open. Crouching, he carefully shined the light in. He crept through the opening. Once he determined the room was empty, he signaled Wolverine and Nightcrawler to join him.

"It iss a kitchen!" Nightcrawler whispered, surprised.

"Even mutants have to eat," Carl observed, amused. They glanced up at Wolverine, expecting a witty remark, only to find an expression of fury on the large man's face. "Wolverine?"

"Watch out!" Wolverine snarled through his teeth, every muscle straining against the grip that now held him fast, frozen by another's power.

"Go!" snapped Carl at Nightcrawler, dumping the flashlight and drawing the other pistol. He flung himself to the side, taking a defensive position against a wall. The teleporter popped out as a figure flowed through the doorway. There was a faint snicker, and a soft sound like wet paper moving. An overhead light suddenly lit the room, and Carl gasped.

"Well, hello again," purred the redheaded woman, running her hand up Wolverine's arm.

"Jeannie?!?" Carl cried, his aim wavering.

She turned a blinding smile on him. "And you've brought friends!" she said, patting Wolverine's cheek. She started towards Carl.

"It's not Jean, it's Mystique!" Wolverine ground out. "And Magneto's got me stuck."

Carl didn't acknowledge the warning, his gaze fixed on the image of his twin before him. He dropped his arms, letting the guns point away. Her smile widened, and she reached out to him. But before she could touch him, she suddenly gasped and twitched as if struck. Her hand went to her head instead.

"You're not my sister," Carl accused. "Don't ever mock her like that again!"

"What's this? Having fun with our guests, my dear?" The rich cultured voice, so like Professor Xavier's in its accent and utter confidence, flowed through the room. "Ah, Wolverine. Why am I not surprised? And who is your friend?" The tall spare man walked through the door as if perfectly at home, bestowing a smirk on Wolverine before turning to Carl. Mystique backed off to stand at his side, dropping her appearance as Jean. They both looked at Carl expectantly.

"Professor Carl Grey," Carl introduced himself, not moving.

"Shoot him!" Wolverine snarled.

Carl shot his partner a look. "I know better."

Magneto smiled, delighted. "I see Charles has at last found himself a lackey with brains."

Carl raised a brow. "I wouldn't call myself a lackey, Herr Lehnsherr."

"Indeed. Grey, you said?" He gave Carl a curious look. "Sibling to redoubtable Doctor Grey?" Carl's chin went up a bit, but he said nothing. "And now you are here to do what?" Magneto continued. "Bring me in, as they say on the police shows?"

"I'm only here about the were-creatures," Carl replied.

"You are, are you?" The silver crucifix dangling at Carl's throat arrested Magneto's attention. "Ah, I see that you are. Ordo Aurae?" An unguarded expression of shock crossed Carl's face. Magneto chuckled. "Well, then I'll leave you to your duty, Knight of a dead Order. We were finished here anyway. So good of you to take care of things for me. Come, my dear." He wrapped an arm around Mystique's shoulders and they walked out of the room.

"What the hell?" Wolverine snarled. "Stop them! Get them! At least shoot HER!"

Carl shook his head. "Our mission is to dispose of the were-creatures."

Wolverine suddenly stumbled forward as Magneto, obviously departed, dropped his control over the big mutant's adamantium skeleton. "Damn it! You had a damned CHAT with that son of a --"

"Logan, shut up. We're not here for them, and even if we do prove they were creating were-monsters, who the hell are we going to tell, huh? I'm more concerned that he knew about the Order, even if it did shut down."

Just then Nightcrawler popped back in. "Ve saw zem leave! A four by four vass hidden. Storm says, do ve chase?"

Carl looked at Wolverine. "You can if you want. I'm going after the were's."

Wolverine sighed. "No, we're not going to chase them. Let Storm know to hold tight." Nightcrawler nodded and popped out.

Carl made a face. "I wonder, does he know that it smells like sulfur when he does that?"

Wolverine rolled his eyes and stalked out of the room.

----------

"Sweet Mary Immaculata!" Carl said, looking around the large underground laboratory. A generator hummed in the corner, powering the overhead fluorescents and a number of computers and other machines. "It's like a genetics lab! Look at all this!" He began to examine the machines, ejecting samples, holding them up to squint at the tiny vials. Wolverine made a circuit of the room, noting exits. Nightcrawler noticed a pair of metal cabinets against one wall. He gave an experimental tug on the handle of one.

Behind them, Carl sat at a computer. He booted it up, and found to his surprise, he didn't even have to hack through any security to access the files. Soon, he was scrolling through documents and genetics code. "Shit! They found a viable source of venom, but then screwed with it genetically! He was trying to find a way to use venom to enhance mutation!" Carl leaned into the screen, fascinated. "He couldn't do it though. The results were unpredictable. The venom overwhelms mutation. But he did try all three known forms, wolf, panther, and bear." His voice shook slightly on the last. "They -- Oh God. He calls them 'donors.'" He continued to read, absorbed.

Nightcrawler beckoned Wolverine over to the cabinets. "Zese are locked," he announced.

"They probably hold something important then." Wolverine decided. He joined Nightcrawler, made a quick check of the lock, and with one claw, popped the lock and opened the metal door. Inside a number of ancient looking books sat on a shelf, wrapped in plastic. Other artifacts were similarly protected, labeled and stored.

"They're dead," Carl announced grimly, eyes never leaving the computer screen. His tone conveyed his sorrow and his anger. "He managed to find a werewolf, a werebear, and a werepanther, all in Europe, and kidnapped them." He continued to read. His voice tightened further. "He harvested venom, then pit the 'pure' were's against the mutant ones. They didn't make it."

While Nightcrawler gently flipped through a large old Bible, Wolverine broke into the other cabinet, only to find more of the same sort of things -- books and artifacts. He meant to dismiss them, when he noticed a black leather case on the bottom, like a fancy storage box. Carefully, he lifted the lid, and stared at the gleaming silver bar nestled in crimson satin.

Carl scrolled through file after file. "The notes keep talking about the 'original experiments'. Could someone else have tried to make mutant were-creatures before?"

"Carl." Wolverine said, weighing the silver bar in his hand. "Carl."

"There's a reference here to the Volkov Grimoire. Volkov - does that sound Russian to you? See if there's a book in those cabinets in Russian."

"Carl!"

"What?" Carl snapped, finally looking up.

Wolverine thumbed the secret button on the silver bar, triggering it. An additional foot of gleaming silver ejected from one end, sharpened to a deadly point. Carl's jaw dropped. "Nightcrawler," Wolverine ordered, "get everything to the jet. Every computer, every piece of equipment, and for chrissakes every single thing in those cabinets!"

The blue man nodded, swiftly gathering a number of books into his arms and teleporting away. Carl and Wolverine stared at each other across the familiar silver stake.

Carl frowned. "It'll take him a while. We need to go on."

Wolverine nodded.

"So, it's going to be just the two of us."

Wolverine nodded again.

Suddenly Carl smiled. "Just like old times, eh?"

Wolverine's return smirk was feral. "Yep."