BEST SERVED COLD
CHAPTER 8: UNHALLOWED GROUND
Bobby stopped concentrating on the ice sculpture in front of him and bit off a growl of purest frustration. Wiping a hand across his face, he looked across his quarters. Dozens of similar sculptures returned his stares, each one depicting a woman with long flowing hair, arms outstretched, their expressions locked in frozen entreaty. Bobby ground his teeth; his hands clenched into fists of their own accord. A burst of irrational anger swept through him. The ice statue before him cracked and crumbled into dozens of unrecognizable chunks.
Really, Robert, you need to control yourself a little better. The students, particularly the empaths, are beginning to complain. Charles Xavier's mental voice drifted through Bobby's mind, at once calming, but definitely with a stern note.
I'm sorry, Professor, but it's been three days. It's never taken this long to locate ANYTHING with Cerebro before! Bobby thought in return, knowing that Xavier could 'hear' him. He began to pace.
Please, be patient. I've already scanned the entire island and the surrounding area twice. I WILL find her, but we're getting off the subject. Robert, I know that this case is causing a higher level of anxiety than normal for you. Why is that? That stopped Bobby in his tracks. He knew the Professor was right, and that he'd know if Bobby told him anything less than the complete truth. For a moment, he stood still, gathering his thoughts.
I guess it's because, well, in all my time here at the mansion, with the X-men, I've never met another mutant with the same power as mine. When I talked with Kathy on the phone, I was sure I'd found my chance. Bobby looked down at the floor. When he looked up, his eyes blazed with fresh frustration.
I wanted to be the one to teach her! I wanted to show her all the things that she could do! You guys get to teach the students all the cool things they can do with their powers. I just wanted to be the "respectable role model" for once, like you and Jean. To the students, I'm just the "easy teacher".Bobby plopped into a chair, expression glum. Professor Xavier's mind-voice was quiet for a few moments, but Bobby could still "feel" his presence.
I am sorry to hear that you feel that way Robert, but may I perhaps offer some persepctive? Bobby unconciously leaned forward in his chair, as the Professor's mind-voice slid into that "teaching" cadence that he was so practiced at. Jean and I have earned our doctorates. We are literally professors at what we do, and the courses we teach are appropriately challenging, and not for students without dedication and motivation. Beast has multiple PhD's, and his courses are leagues beyond ours, even. Scott may not have the same level of education that we do, but you know how deeply serious he is about his teaching duties. As for Logan, well - Professor Xavier chuckled in his mind - even the most brazen students are humbled, if not intimidated, by the Wolverine.
By contrast, I believe that you are one of, if not the most, liked teachers in the Institute. The children are more relaxed around you than any of the others, no matter how gentle they may be, because they sense your, well, "devil-may-care" attitude. You may have long ago matured out of your days as a undisciplined and rebellious youth, but they have marked you, and the students still relate to it. I believe they see you not so much as "the easy teacher" as "the easy-going teacher". As one of them rather philosophically quoted to me, "The Iceman chilleth."
Bobby flushed in momentary embarrassment. It had never occurred to him that the students might think of him as "the cool uncle".
Thanks Professor. Still, then there's the business of that Gibbens woman. You heard that bastard McKannen on the television, didn't you? "So tragic, yadda, yadda, such a tragic loss, blah-blah-blah." Suicide, my ass! He killed her, or had her killed, and I want to know why so I can nail him!It was Xavier's turn to think for a minute. A bubble of confusion surfaced.
Bobby, those ice sculptures—are those intended to be Ms. Wister? You said she had similar powers to your own?
No, Professor. These—I, uh—I never really saw her face. I just talked with her on the phone. I guess these are just what I thought she'd look like from her voice. Come to think of it, she never told me exactly what her powers were. When I asked, she just said, 'Come out here into the water and I'll show you'—hey that's it! Professor, what if Kathy's power was to breathe underwater? No wonder you wouldn't be able to find her on the island! She could be hiding in the river or the bay even!
An excellent idea, Robert, I'll get started on that immediately. But tell me, if Ms. Wister was not the mutant with ice powers, who was?
Oh—Kathy said she was calling for a friend whose daughter was a mutant. Tracy—she said the girl's name was Tracy. Logan and I saw her three days ago when we got to the house.Bobby leaned against one of the icy maidens and laid his head against his arm. We were too late, Professor. We should have known McKannen would send assassins or something. When we got there, her body was already stone cold. Bobby looked up. Wait a second—stone cold. REALLY cold. The coroners were arguing about it.
What is it, Robert?
I'm not exactly sure, Professor. Now that I think about it, there were a lot of weird things about that fire. Everyone who was there remarked on it. The fire fighters recovered Tracy's body from the house after the fire, but it wasn't even burnt. Then Logan found that poor dog—yuck. The thing that bothers me most about it was the fact that the fire was out before the firefighters got there, but Tracy was still dead. I guess that's it right there: If I'd been there, I'd have put the fire out with my powers a LONG time before it gutted the whole house! Why didn't Tracy do the same thing? If her power was to make cold—
Go with the memory, Robert, I will help.
—"no, scratch that"—
Bobby stopped in mid-thought, mouth open, as Kathy's voice whispered from his memory. She'd corrected herself.
— she absorbs heat. Her whole body is like a heat sink—
"Oh my God." Bobby spoke aloud.
Robert?
"Professor, SHE'S STILL ALIVE!" Bobby shouted in excitement.
Yes, yes, Robert, we already determined that was possible—
"No Professor, not Kathy—the girl! Tracy! She absorbs heat! That's why the fire went out, that's why her body didn't burn! She's still alive! WE'VE GOT TO FIND HER!"
That night, the early November wind lent the Hudson River a blanket of fog. The thick stuff rolled over Hart Island, transforming it into a surreal labyrinth of skeletal trees and innumerable crosses. Shadows danced and writhed in the moments when the moon peeked through the clouds. The island itself was a mass cemetery, reserved for those to poor to have a private lot on Manhattan proper. The island had also come to be the final resting place of countless John and Jane Does. Thousands of plain, simple crosses, each with only an eight-digit ID number to name their occupant, stood in neat, straight rows. Only an abandoned chapel and a few trees here and there broke the monotony. No one lived on the island, and the gravediggers and ferrymen never stayed after nightfall. The island was deserted. Almost.
Where am I?
—fire—
I can't move!
—smoke—
-shut in-
—pain—
-no light-
—so much heat—
I can't breathe!
—PULL!—
"NOOOOOOO—!"
A circular wave swept through the ground. It contracted around the grave, indistinguishable from the others save for its extraordinary occupant. Icicles formed on the cross's arms, and the ID number was obliterated by frost. The very earth itself groaned as it froze solid for thirty feet in every direction. A thin coat of frosty ice crawled outward from the grave, shedding frozen mist. From within the rolling fog, snow began to swirl through the air.
For a moment, all was still. The sound of the landlocked iceberg splitting in half echoed across the island like a thunderclap. The crack itself was nearly six inches across and intersected the grave at a right angle. White vapor seeped from the fissure like blood from a wound. The vapor thickened and coalesced into a single white hand, clawing skyward.
A scream ripped through the night air, a banshee's wail of pain and despair. A storm wind might have howled so, like a thing in torment, dying by inches, but not allowed to find release in death. A huge, billowing white cloud of vapor erupted from the fissure like a geyser. For a moment, the cloud hung suspended in the air, a roiling whirlwind of frozen fury. Slowly, the cloud sank back to the earth and condensed further, into the form of a huddled figure.
She 'sat' before the ice-covered cross, her vaporous body wrapped in a misty burial shroud. Her gaze pierced the gloom as the moon slipped behind a cloud. To her sight, the terrain was gray, except the thirty feet or so around her, which was black. Her hands were the deepest black yet, and the outline of their shape blurred and trembled indistinctly with the breeze.
I'm dead, she thought numbly, I'm dead, and now I'm a ghost. The darkened hulk of the abandoned chapel caught and held her gaze. Her eyes followed the steeple, jutting into the sky. A church. Compelled by something she couldn't explain, the vaporous woman knew she should go there. What better place for a ghost?
Rising, she discovered that she needed only to lean forward and think to move. Her incorporeal body trailed ice and frost along the ground as she floated past the graves. The rusted, twisted iron gates of the churchyard were no barrier; she simply floated through them, and frost rimed the bars as well. Although the large double-doors of the old church had weathered the years better, they too, could not keep her out. She bent down and 'dove' into the gap beneath the doors, her body rising again from the crawling mist on the other side.
The interior of the chapel showed its age. Broken pews littered the floor, the pulpit had long ago fallen over, the windows were shattered, and tiny, unseen animals came and went freely. There was only one thing out of place. Sitting before the pulpit, glowing with heat, was - a cat.
The little creature sat like a statue, its fur impossibly, immaculately white and clean amongst the filth of the ruined building. It gazed, unblinking, at her with eyes that were simply too electric, too blazing neon-blue to have come from nature. It sat perfectly still, watching her, unconcerned. The ghost found herself drawn into those eyes, those deep, liquid, living blue eyes—
Behold.
Suddenly she was not inside a rotting church, on a cold November night. She was not a floating spirit, but her old self again. She was standing at the edge of a plaza that she'd seen before, in front of McKannen Industries Main Office Building. The cat was sitting at her feet. A small crowd of what looked like reporters gathered around a tall man in an expensive suit. The cat watched him intently. All around, there were emergency vehicles; police cruisers, an ambulance. News vans hung around the edges like vultures. The tall man was delivering a speech to the reporters as the coroners wheeled away a shrouded body on a gurney.
"Ms. Gibbens served this company for fifteen long years; her death is a great loss. We discovered this note, explaining that she suspected a woman named Katherine Wister of kidnapping her child, Tracy. When police arrived at Wister's house, they found a scene of horror. Wister had set fire to the house with the girl still inside. The authorities recovered the Tracy's body, but it was too late. When Ms. Gibbens heard the news, she went to her office on the thirtieth floor, wrote this note, and—and threw herself from the window." The tall man's voice choked with grief, but his eyes twinkled with sadistic pleasure.
She couldn't hear her heartbeat. Ms. Gibbens? SARAH Gibbons?
Mom? Dead?NO! It's not possible!
"You—you MURDERER! YOU KILLED HER!" She leapt past the reporters, tears blinding her, hands outstretched like claws to strangle the suited man. But her hands found nothing, and she passed right through his body. No one seemed to notice that she'd cried out or tried to kill this man. They didn't seem to notice that she existed. To her horror, she found herself hands and knees in a darkening bloodstain on the concrete, the chalk outline of a body drawn over the cracks on the ground.
A reporter surged forward, brandishing a microphone like a weapon. "Mr. McKannen! Mr. McKannen, do the police have any information on the kidnapper?"
"The prime suspect, Ms. Katherine Wister is still at large, and is also suspected of being a mutant, with connections to a mutant criminal element. If you see or hear anything about her, please report it to the NYPD immediately." McKannen took barely concealed glee in divulging that bit of news.
Aunt Kathy! The image of the red haired woman being struck by lightning and thrown into the basement, followed by a searing blast from a flamethrower raced through her mind.
"It is unfortunate that Ms. Gibbens was such an—excitable woman. She was a fan of theatre, which no doubt influenced her sad decision. In her mind, she was the greatest tragedy of all—" Tragedy! "—and for her, there was only one way to cope." McKannen shook his head. "Truly, truly tragic."
Cold hatred boiled within her, ready to burst. Her own rage colored her vision with a red haze. The image of McKannen's face burned itself into her memory. Her gaze went to the mysterious cat. It returned her look then glanced to the side. Look— She followed with her eyes. Standing away from the crowd, near the entrance to an alleyway, were three people.
Smoky. The Gun Man. The Gremlin. Their faces flashed before her eyes, their voices replayed in her mind.
—"so pretty, such a waste"— Smoky, his dirty hands all over her body
—"finish the job"— The Gun Man, the butt of his huge gun descending, slamming into her head
—"burn that noisy bitch!"— The Gremlin, murderous, laughing lightning
"I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"
Good. With those words, the plaza, McKannen, the three hired killers and the reporters disappeared, replaced by a flash of light and the image of a storefront. No, wait, it was a bar. The neon sign over the door read, 'The Salamander', Bar & Grill, and depicted a flaming lizard-like critter. Even though she had never seen or heard of this place, she was certain in the knowledge of where it was and how to get there. Then the bar then faded from view as well. Start here, with Smoky.
Vision returned. She was back in the ruined church. The mysterious cat was gone, without a trace that it had ever been there, or ever existed. New determination flowed through her, new strength, new purpose that bordered on madness.
Now I know why I'm a ghost. I know why I can't rest. I'll make them all pay. I'll kill them all.
Her fingers brushed the floor in front of the pulpit, where the cat had been sitting. With a small mental tug, the heat from the floor was sucked away. A thin sheet of ice blossomed beneath her fingers. It bubbled upward from the floor in a concave oval, the size of a face. The 'face' grew more and more distinct, the features matching themselves to the image in her mind.
When it was finished, she gave a small jerk and it came away from the floor. Cradling the mask in both hands, her own misty substance swirled around it. A second later the mist cleared, and it was there again, a white vaporous form, like herself. She pressed it to her face with both hands, where it adhered. She tipped her head back and screamed into the waiting silence.
"YOU WANT TRAGEDY, McKANNEN?! I'LL SHOW YOU TRAGEDY! TRACY GIBBENS IS DEAD! I - AM - TRAGEDY!"