Sanctuary (9 page)

After what happened in Colorado, Wolverine was looking forward to throwing down with the Acolytes again. He didn't want to think about the combined resources of Magneto and the Sentinels—one thing at a time.

There was no way he was going to let Magneto win. New York would turn into the tyrant's private playground only over Wolverine's dead body. If that was what it took, that's what it took. As the tension grew aboard the
Blackbird
, he could feel the low growl building in his throat. Not loud enough for the others to hear, but loud enough for him to feel it in every fiber of his being.

"Well?" Iceman finally broke the silence. "Any sign of them?"

"No visuals," the Beast said from the cockpit. "Bishop, have you got anything on radar?"

"Nothing," Bishop answered. "Apparently we're as welcome as the next mutant."

"Let's not get carried away," Storm cautioned.

"Simply because we were not stopped at the 'door' doesn't mean we are welcome. It could very well be that Magneto would rather have us in here, where he can keep an eye on us."

"Then he's a hell of a lot dumber than I gave 'im credit for up 'til now," Wolverine snarled. "Magneto oughta know better than to think he can cage the X-Men. I ain't exactly a domesticated beast."

"I, on the other hand, am entirely house-broken, thank you very much," the Beast said from up front.

"Laugh it up, McCoy," Wolverine said grimly. "It ain't gonna be a party down there, though."

"True enough, Logan," the Beast acknowledged.

"But humor is oftimes all that distinguishes man from savage animal. It serves me well as a reminder that I am, head to toe, human first. Mutant, second."

"Ah, Hank," Storm said wistfully, "if only the world could see that."

They were quiet again, then, and Wolverine could not help thinking of Hank's words. He was not without a sense of humor. In fact, he could be quite a practical joker in his own right, given the chance. But there was a time for that kind of thing, and as far as Wolverine was concerned, this wasn't it. Still, if that was what the Beast needed to deal with the scenario, Logan figured he'd best leave his teammate to it. There were things he needed, ways he had to feel, to get by as well.

But for Wolverine, those feelings were quite a bit more hostile.

"Central Park below, team," Bishop said quietly.

"Bobby, is that mini-Cerebro tracker functioning properly?" Storm asked.

Iceman picked up a small black metal and plastic unit that looked more like a hand held video game to Wolverine than any useful technology. Looks could be deceiving, however. In truth, it was a much smaller version of Cerebro, the computer that Professor Xavier used in the Institute's efforts to find developing mutants and keep track of those they were already aware of.

"It's lit up like a Christmas tree," Iceman said, then turned the tracker unit so both Wolverine and Storm could see the green dots that filled the grid on its face. At the bottom of the grid were a group of dots that were enveloped in a red, warning glow.

"It can't pinpoint Magneto specifically," Iceman explained, "but it can point us in the right direction. From here, we go south."

"The ol' Canucklehead is right on your tail, Bobby," Wolverine said, his voice even more guttural than usual.

"Time to take Magneto down a peg. He's gone way over the line this time."

Retro-thrusters on the VTOL unit kicked in, and the
Blackbird
seemed to rise a moment as if cresting an ocean wave. Then the plane dropped. There was no hesitation, nothing gentle about it. The
Blackbird
wasn't built as a comfort vessel. It was made for action. Wolverine admired that in people and things alike.

The quick-drop hatch opened out of the belly of the
Blackbird
, even before the plane touched down on Central Park's Sheep Meadow. With the Beast at his side, Wolverine leaped from the hatch and landed in a crouch on the grass, which was buffeted by the
Blackbird's
retros.

The whole park, Wolverine thought, was a lark, a foolish dream. There in the middle of the city, Central Park pretended to be peaceful countryside, just as the city dwellers pretended when they escaped to the park. It may have been a jungle at night, predators stalking the wood, but the falsehood of it insulted Wolverine. Even if his senses had not been so far superior to the average human's, it would have been impossible not to smell the stench of the city infiltrating the park.

"Fire," the Beast said as he touched down next to Wolverine.

"Got it," Logan responded. "Southeast, less than half a mile."

"Spread out," Storm commanded from the air, even as Bishop piloted the
Blackbird
to a final stop in the park. "Logan, Hank, I can see flames from here. Scout one hundred yards south, and return. Bobby, do a perimeter check with me on flyover."

Bishop emerged from the ship just as they were moving to comply with Storm's orders.

"Bishop, lock the
Blackbird
up tight, all defenses armed," she added. "It wouldn't do to have our exit destroyed. All rendezvous back here in five minutes."

It was a fast five minutes. Wolverine melted into the woods with predatory silence. He could hear the Beast off to the west, making little attempt to mask his passage. Hank might have the look of an animal, but that didn't mean he had the primal instincts.

He moved in the direction of the fire, alert to any sign of offensive movement. It felt foolish, surreal. Manhattan island had suddenly become a war zone. Indeed, if all they found were masses of hysterical civilians, it wouldn't surprise Wolverine at all. But there was a chance that they had been detected and that an ambush would be waiting. He wasn't about to let that happen.

The fire filled his nostrils, though still several hundred yards away. Then he detected something else. Something human. It was a dense, sour smell, mixed with alcohol. Even before the homeless man cut and run from the brush up ahead, Logan had spotted him with nothing more than moonlight to see by. The poor man, perhaps fifty, took off like a startled deer. Though not nearly as quick, of course. It might have taken Wolverine twenty seconds to down a startled deer.

This guy took five.

Up close, he stank to high heaven, his odor so powerful Wolverine could barely smell the fire anymore.

"God, no, please, don't kill me," the man squealed.

"Please, no, I ain't got nothin' in this world. I just don't wanna die."

"Stop squirming!" Wolverine snarled, bringing the man up to his full height by tugging on his loose shirt-front.

"I ain't gonna hurt you. Relax, will ya? Stop jabbering!"

There was a tone that he allowed into his voice at certain times. Wolverine wasn't sure he liked the tone, or what it said about him, but it was there, and it worked. The homeless man responded immediately, and Wolverine finally got a good look at him. He wasn't at all glad that he did. The man was shabby looking, his clothes stained and tattered, and he looked as though he hadn't shaved or had his hair cut in a decade. He was sick. Smelled sick, now that Wolverine could scent anything beyond the man's stink. But he wasn't more than thirty.

He only moved like he was fifty.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, more softly, almost kindly, to the wide-eyed man, then let go of the poor soul's shirt.

"But," the man began, "you're a mutie, aren't—I mean, a mutant, aren't you? You guys are takin' over, that's what Bernie says."

"There are some mutants trying to take over the city," Wolverine admitted. "We're here to stop them. I don't suppose you've seen anything that could help us track 'em down."

The homeless man suddenly snapped to attention, in a salute of surprising quality. A military man, then, maybe Gulf War. Not so long ago and already come to this. For a moment, Wolverine had to wonder if the guy would be better off with Magneto in charge.

"Yes sir," the man said then, obviously disappointed to see that his salute had not been returned. "Me an' Bernie were down right where that fire was, where the people burned down the toy store, you know, the one with all the letters? Well, we seen them muties ... I mean, mutants ... well, we seen 'em killing people. They're gonna murder us all, man. That's what Bernie says."

"Where's Bernie now?" Wolverine asked, surprised that he didn't smell anyone else out in the Park.

"I don't know," the homeless man said, then lowered his head, ashamed. "I kind of, well, I ran away. To get help, see. That's it, to get help. Only I didn't find any."

Wolverine put a hand on the man's shoulder, and their eyes met. Despite his mad talk, there seemed to be some kind of awareness in there.

"Sure you did," Wolverine said. "You found me, didn't you?"

"Yeah, that's right," the man happily agreed. "I ran to find help, and I found you."

"What's your name, bub?" Wolverine asked.

"Jerry," he answered. "Name's Jerry. What's yours?"

"Logan."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Logan," Jerry said, sort of bouncing on the balls of his feet now that he'd made a new friend. "Mr. Logan, you going to want to look at that chopper now?"

"Chopper?"

"Yeah, the all-scrunched-up one."

• • •

The X-Men stood around the news helicopter in silence. Jerry had led them there at his own request, but now Wolverine was wondering if that had been a mistake. The broadcast affiliate's call letters had been stencilled on the side of the chopper, and the Beast recognized them immediately.

"Lord, no," Hank said. "Trish?"

"There's nobody inside," Wolverine said quickly, sensing the Beast's distress.

"There was a man," Jerry insisted. "He jumped out right before it got crushed, at least that's what he said."

Jerry hung back away from the X-Men slightly, and Wolverine couldn't blame him. The man was clearly not in his right mind, and while the whole team looked fairly intimidating, Beast and Iceman were clearly non-human. And, after all, Jerry's buddy Bernie had told him that the "muties" were going to kill him.

"What man?" the Beast asked. "Where did he go?"

"Walked right out of the park," Jerry answered.

"Said he was going to get out of the city." Jerry snorted in derision, then added, "Yeah, I'm sure he made it, too."

"Hank, we don't know that Trish was covering this story," Storm reasoned, but the Beast was having none of it.

"In the midst of this crisis, in the hour of need, with .her notoriety on mutant issues, where else would she be, Ororo?" the Beast asked grimly. "Our relationship may have ended, but I stilI care for her very much."

Wolverine couldn't hold back any longer. They had wasted too much time. And the Beast deserved the truth.

"She was here, Hank," Wolverine said. "I picked up her scent in the woods before, but I didn't recognize it 'til we found the chopper."

"See, buddy," Iceman said with his usual enthusiasm. "She's okay."

"Just because she walked away from this disaster, doesn't mean she's okay," Bishop chimed in. "We're in the middle of a genocidal civil war, Drake. It isn't that simple."

Silence descended upon the group as Bishop's words sank in. Far to one side, Iceman crossed the several steps to where Bishop stood and whispered, though not so low that Wolverine could not hear his words.

"You are one cold son of a bitch," Iceman said, and there was an anger, and a danger, in his voice that Wolverine could not recall ever hearing there before.

"You can abuse me and insult me all you like, pal," Iceman continued, "but Hank McCoy is the best of us, bar none. You show him the respect he deserves."

There was a challenge growing in Bishop's face as the man listened to Iceman speak. Wolverine saw it there, rising, about to be unleashed. It was to be expected. Bishop was a hard man to hurt, even harder to kill, and Bobby Drake was so lighthearted it was difficult to imagine what his implied threat might actually entail. Wolverine waited for the challenge, the "or else?" that he knew would come from Bishop at any moment.

But it didn't.

After a moment, Bishop merely nodded slightly. A lesson had been learned. None of the others was close enough to have heard Bobby's words, not even the Beast, and Wolverine was not about to discuss it. Not with Iceman, or with Bishop, or anybody else. He knew, also, that he would never forget it. Bobby Drake had been the class clown all his life, the butt of jokes. But if he'd been a different person, he would have been an extraordinarily dangerous man. The potential was there.

"Logan," the Beast asked, the moment of reflection ended. "Which way did they go?"

"All roads lead to Rome," Wolverine said, and pointed to where firelight still turned the black sky a sickly yellow to the southeast. "Everything around here seems to be pointin' to that fire, and that's definitely the direction.Trish was headed."

Without another word, the Beast set off in the same direction.

"Bobby," Storm asked quietly, "what do you read on that mini-tracker?"

"Same deal, Storm," Iceman responded. "Bunch of green dots all around,' but a big concentration to the south. And the red dots are south as well."

"Thank the goddess for small favors," Ororo said.

"Let's go."

They moved quietly into the woods after the Beast, all except. Wolverine. He hung back a moment with Jerry, who had seemed to disappear when things got tense, though he never left their sight. Somehow, he had learned how not to be seen. Or—and Wolverine hoped this wasn't the case—they had simply learned how not to see Jerry, and those like him.

"Listen, bub," Wolverine said. "You stay here until this is allover, okay? Until you know that things are back to normal, you stay in the park. And if your friend Bernie shows up, keep him here with you. It isn't safe for you to be in the city."

"It isn't safe anywhere, Mr. Logan," Jerry said grimly, and there was a flash of intelligence, of sanity and wisdom in the homeless man's face that made Wolverine wonder exactly how crazy Jerry was.

The look stayed with him as he caught up with the X-Men, and the words rang in his head as they emerged from the park several minutes later to find that utter chaos reigned supreme.