Chapter Four: The Devil's Path
The CDC - Center for Disease Control - was in sight now. Its grounds were extensive and Kurt expected security would be intense. I wonder how McCoy managed to infiltrate this place? he asked himself. Pity Jean isn't around with her telepathy - that would make things easier, but then I did want a challenge.
It was well after hours, therefore the best time to explore. He teleported to the roof of what seemed the main building. Ach, what is that smell? Kurt wondered. Peering down, he spied a dead mouse near his feet. He kicked it from his path and then, looking around briefly while avoiding the more well lit areas, he made his way over the edge and began to descend the wall. He was simply searching for a window to give him a line-of-sight teleport into the building's interior. He found one quickly enough.
BAMF
Kurt found himself in what appeared to be a standard office with perhaps ten cubicles equipped with computers. All were dark and empty - lucky for him. He could only imagine the reaction to his sudden arrival that some poor late-working soul might have had. Trying one of the machines, he found it password protected. No surprise, he thought. He decided to move on and discover what he could.
Several hours later, he'd determined that security wouldn't be as much of an obstacle as he'd originally thought. Apparently whoever designed the system had presumed motion detectors on the floors would be adequate. Not many people expected a body to travel via the ceilings. Surveillance cameras were predictably located and easily avoided. Most importantly, Kurt had found the heart of the facility's security center. To truly investigate Dark Beast's activities here, he had to find a way to access the information stored there, but that was a problem for tomorrow.
Kurt teleported back to the roof and yawned. It had been a good night's work. Now to return to the room he'd rented downtown and get some much deserved rest.
Generally, he had no trouble falling asleep in a strange location. After all the years of travel while working for Eric, he was accustomed to it. Tonight was no exception, and the sounds of the traffic three stories below acted as a lullaby, the neon flashes no more disturbing to him than starlight.
The rigid control he kept his mind under during waking hours was relaxed in sleep, and there, the shadows were not always kind and welcoming. As might be expected from someone who'd experienced the things in life he had, Kurt had nightmares. He was as accustomed to them as he was to sleeping in atypical places. However, one in particular disturbed him more than most. Upon waking, he was left feeling out of control, like he'd been the victim of some tidal wave that had crashed over him, carrying him to some unknown shore, and it was a place he'd never find his way home from.
It always started the same, with the smell of popcorn (an aroma he detested).
That familiar odor filling his nostrils, Kurt twitched under the covers, flailing one arm out before succumbing to the dream.
From the kitchen, I hear my favorite detective program playing on the television, one set in the picturesque clime of Hawaii. It looks so unlike Germany. One day, I'll visit there. I'll see such a place and know how it feels to put my feet in the ocean, and learn what such white sand feels like.
It's cool out tonight, so we have a fire going in the grate, and it gives the room a warm, cheerful glow. I nearly trip over a stack of books while I'm carrying a bowl of freshly popped corn into the sitting room. Neither of us are of the age to be the tidiest of people. Clara was a stickler for neatness, but now that she's gone, there's no one to bother us over our piles of clutter. Mausi laughs and teases me about my lack of grace tonight. She sits on the couch wearing one of my old sweaters; she's so short that the thing reaches halfway to her knees when she's standing. She smiles up at me.
"Will you come on? The show is about to start and my feet are freezing!"
She wiggles her toes and pats the seat next to her. She wants me to sit down so she can tuck her feet under my leg, the same as every evening.
"What am I, your personal fuzzy blue foot warmer? Was für eine scheiss Idee!" I turn to her with mock indignation.
It is at that precise moment that my life changes forever.
I hear a sharp crack behind me, and the sound of breaking glass. As I turn to see what has caused the noise, I can feel the sting of something striking my head. I'm uncertain exactly what has just occurred, but I find the floor rising up to meet me. The bowl of popcorn strikes the coffee table and shatters, spilling its contents everywhere. Mausi sobs on the floor, and her arms encircle me. She is shaking with fear.
"Who are you? What do you want? Get OUT of here!" she yells at the figures suddenly crowding the room.
I'm horribly dizzy and my vision is etched in white; all I can make out are blurry man-sized shapes rushing towards us. I can't clear my head enough to teleport, and then it is too late. Mausi is torn away from me. She's kicking and thrashing at them, screeching obscenities with all of the rage a fourteen-year-old girl can muster.
"Let go of me you stupid son of a bitch! Goddammit, stay away from him! What have we ever done to you?"
"Haltet ihn!" (Hold him!)
Two men are holding me down, while several others take turns pounding their fists into my face and ribs. My nose snaps and my eyebrow splits. Blood runs down my face in little rivers. I think several of my ribs are broken, and there's a sharp pain when I try to breathe. My vision is cut in half as one of my eyes swells shut, and still, they continue. I struggle against them, but my body refuses to obey any of the commands I'm giving it. The whole while they heap abuse on me, they yell, "Du bist der Teufel! Der Teufel!" (You are the devil! The devil!)
I am the devil? Me? I'm not even a grown man yet!
After my cheekbone shatters, I am beyond pain. It seems that I'm watching all of this madness from above. I can see Mausi, actually very near where I am, facing towards me. I suppose they want her to see me, or perhaps, they wish for me to see her. There are fewer of them holding her. She fights for all she is worth, biting the hands that hold her, maiming the knee of someone with a lucky kick. It isn't enough. At least it isn't once the knife is out. Those men cut the little mouse quite a bit. A roaring sound fills my mind. I fight the men holding me, but I'm left with all the strength of a fish on shore. She's no longer screaming profanity; now she just screams. There's so much blood! My vision tunnels until all I can focus on are her eyes, locked with mine. That look! Gott Mausi, I'm so sorry! They shout and jeer at her the whole while. They seem to be enjoying themselves.
"Tötet des Teufels Spielzeug!" (Kill the devil's toy!)
Her screaming stops abruptly, and those bright black eyes still hold me as they grow dim. Hot drops of blood splash across my face and run into my open mouth. My world has gone red. Many years in the future, when my world once again goes red, I will remember this night as a twisted prelude.
By the time I can see that familiar tangle of black hair sitting at such an odd angle from the body it goes with, I hear screaming again, but it isn't Mausi; it never will be again. No, this screaming is lower in pitch and shattering to my ears. My throat aches with it. It is the same word repeated over and over, drawn out each time.
"NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN!"
A sharp crack reverberates in my skull, then there is merciful darkness.
When I next open my good eye, it is to a scene of gothic horror, as if from a bad film. The peaked ceiling of a church is over my head, and candlelight is flickering strangely from the stained glass windows. I try to rise, but my movements are limited by ropes that bind my hands and feet to a large table. My breath still catches from the pain in my ribs, and my brain feels as though it is burning. There is something I should know, but I cannot recall what it is. I can see stone statues of saints, looking down on me passively, like a mute audience. Help me, I whisper to them.
I become aware that there are men still surrounding me. Now they all hold weapons, but for a priest, who holds a vial of some liquid which he shakes across me. My vision swims for a moment, and I desperately try to gather my muddled thoughts, struggling vainly to force my weak and uncooperative body to teleport away from this. His voice is that of a trained orator when he says the same thing I heard only hours ago.
"Du bist der Teufel."
He says it so matter-of-factly, and with almost no feeling. He might have been saying that the weather was nice. I struggle again against my bindings and try to find my voice. Nothing but a hoarse croaking whisper will come from my throat. There has to have been some mistake. I am no devil, I am just a boy! This is a mistake! Mausi and I are going to take a trip to see the Pacific Ocean when we're older. She is going to be a famous dancer or perhaps a doctor and I will live a life of adventure. My mind slides sickeningly. Mausi. Red fills my memory and I start to shake. No, this is not happening! This is a mistake! I'm not a devil!
The men around me cheer the priest, and they take turns bashing the helpless "demon" in their midst once again before taking up the chant,
"Töten Sie den Teufel! Töten Sie den Teufel! " (Kill the devil! Kill the devil!)
The priest begins to speak in Latin, reading from his great book, and the men look on me with gleaming, murderous eyes. Like many a young soldier on the battlefield, faced with the fear of death, I wish with all my heart for my mother. And then she is there.
I can hear a sound like no other I've ever heard. It is a type of high-pitched rending noise, as of metal against metal. Startled, the priest halts his reading, and he and the others turn to look towards the door. At that moment, it bursts outward from its iron hinges, opening a hole into the night that reveals a man and a woman standing there. Mother! My mother stands in the doorway next to a white-haired man!
An iron candelabra shakes violently before hurtling through the air towards the door. Men yell in fright as weapons are snatched from their hands by the same unseen force. The very foundations of the church seem to be shaking. My mother wears an expression I've never seen as she rushes inside. She picks up two of the stolen weapons, and brandishing them in front of her, screams at my captors.
"Wie könnt ihr es wagen? Wie könnt ihr es wagen?" (How dare you? How dare you?)
She is cutting a bloody swath through them, heedless of their pleas for mercy. The dying grasp at her legs and the polished floor is awash with red. The white-haired man looks on sadly without interfering.
"Dafür werdet ihr alle bezahlen!" (All of you will pay for this!)
The bodies are piling up at her feet, a gruesome testament to a mother's avenging wrath. I can feel a tug on the ropes holding my wrists. I look up to see a young man some years older than myself, and bearing a strong resemblance to the man in the doorway. He gently unties my hands and feet.
The village men scream in vain, the sound echoing through the church. My mother continues, her face a terrible mix of rage and satisfaction, coated in the blood of these men. She taunts them as they die.
"Verflucht seid ihr alle!" (All of you be damned!)
The blood! Ach, all the blood! Their cries are a serenade of horror, and the sound overlaps in my mind with the screams I heard only a few hours ago. I feel reason slipping away from me. No more, Mutti! Please, no more! You are not a butcher like these men! Not you! My brain twists and my guts heave; then in a flash of fire and brimstone, I am finally elsewhere. Shaking, I hide in the shadows of a Hawthorne tree near the church, safe now in the cool depths of the night. A fire burns on the distant hill where once an old farmhouse stood. My home will be ashes by dawn.
That night, I bury the boy I was and the man I might have been. That man who might have lived a normal life. That man who might not have been one of the sole survivors of a mutant family, the husband to a dead wife and the bringer of vengeance. That night, in the shadows of a Hawthorne, I take my first step on the devil's path.
With the echo of screams still hanging in the room, Kurt sat bolt upright in bed, sheet tangled around his waist. He was soaked in sweat and his heart was pounding; the adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream. Panting and gasping for breath, he clumsily dislodged himself from the bedding and paced to the window. The devil. I'm the devil. He leaned out, taking large gulps of the humid night air. Slowly, the dream receded, retreating back to the dark well his mind had devised for it. First the metallic taste of blood faded from his mouth. Then his ears stopped ringing. Finally the smell of popcorn was gone.
Kurt fingered the mark over his left eye. It was as much a scar as a tattoo, the skin puckered and without fur under the red design. The day at the base, when Wade had made fun of it, he'd wanted to kill the man. Not everyone looked into the eye of death and lived to tell about it.
Du bist der Teufel - "You are the devil"
Haltet ihn - "Hold him"
Tötet des Teufels Hure!- "Kill the devil's whore"
Töten Sie den Teufel! - "Kill the devil"
Wie könnt ihr es wagen? - "How dare you"
Dafür werdet ihr alle bezahlen!- "(all of) you will pay for this"
Verflucht seid ihr alle!- "all of you be damned"