Storm sealed the manila envelope and handed it to Jubilee, “You know what to do.”
“I’m on the job, boss lady,” Jubilee whisked out the door with the envelope and her cell phone, punching in the number to the nearest messenger service.
Minutes later, a messenger strode briskly up the front walk of a modest house in a quiet neighborhood, and rang the bell. Toad answered, noting the surprised look on the guy’s face as the messenger saw his moist, greenish skin.
“Uh... I uh... I... have a registered letter for an Eric Lensherr. It must be signed for,” the guy held a clipboard forward.
With a grimace, Toad signed a false name to the clipboard and took the envelope, failed to tip the guy, and shut the door in his face. He watched from a side window as the guy left on a bicycle. Racing upstairs to Eric’s converted study/office, he laid the envelope on his employer’s desk, “This was just delivered to Eric Lensherr, registered. I had to sign for it; seems I’m Orson Welles today. Were you expecting a delivery?”
“No,” Magneto’s voice was suspiciously calm as he eased the letter from the envelope. Holding it under the lamp, he read:
To: Mr. Eric Lensherr, aka Magneto:
We have your current home address (as you are now aware by the delivery of this missive), as well as your black 2006 Mercedes-Benz sedan’s license plate number, and the identities of your employees including Miss Shelly Hanson, formerly of Lubbock, Texas, who is now en route to a more legitimate occupation in another country. She has received all necessary medical treatment for her unfortunate injuries incurred during the composition of this letter.
To cut to the (literal) chase, we know everything; and we have turned your contact information in it’s entirety over to the federal authorities, who were thrilled to learn of your whereabouts. You may expect them to be in contact with you at any moment. If you listen closely, you may already hear sirens in the distance.
In essence, sir, do not fuck with my people again.
Sincerely,
Ororo Munroe
With a deep sigh, Eric laid the letter down on the desk and cast his hooded eyes to Toad, “It seems our plans have once again changed. Evacuate this building immediately, as planned. John will take the Mercedes to a salvage yard crusher in New Jersey, and we’ll take the other car to the Pennsylvania safe house. Notify John once we’re enroute.”
Toad was out of the room at a run within the span of one breath. Eric drummed his fingertips momentarily on the desktop before glancing once more at the letter and the signature.
“Check, but not mate, my dear. Well played, Storm; you surprise me.”
Emptying the contents of the desk drawers into a valise, Eric snatched the letter as well and hastened to the waiting car.
Three minutes later, federal marshals surrounded an empty house as a nondescript Honda Civic with fictitious plates took a leisurely route to the nearest freeway ramp. Three hours later, a thorough search of the house had given the FBI no clues to pursue Magneto, other than a few fingerprints which were already on file.
*
Logan woke around sundown and groggily checked the digital clock, noting the early darkness. Dragging himself from the bed and pushing aside the curtains, he fought off a wave of dizziness before he noticed the heavily-clouded sky and the barbed flash of distant lightning. A storm roiled miles away, sending his thoughts back to stormy nights he had spent in the forest, reveling in the raw power of the elements: the scent of ozone, the smell of rain, the rumble of distant thunder echoing to his sensitive ears.
Leaning his feverish head against the window frame, Logan mentally searched for what his body needed: coolness; freedom from the confines of the school; to touch the earth, smell the rain, lay beneath a tree; anything to get outside, get away, escape. Shoving on his boots, he shambled from the room.
At the edge of the forest, Logan stopped to lean against a tree, catch his breath, and get focused again. He looked at his hands, fingers outstretched in the dusky light, and thought he was shaking. The fierce dance of lightning across the sky made the shadows shake, too, so he doubted what his eyes were telling him and took the main path into the deep woods. The rumbling thunderheads filled the sky above him and the air was rich with the forest and the storm, redolent of moisture, moss, life. Even without his mutant senses, it still filled his soul as he breathed deeply, sucking in the peace and power of the elements. Wind tore through his hair and shook green leaves down around him like darting luna moths against the gathering night.
*
Ororo leaned against the kitchen counter by a window, watching the lightning dance. The powerful storm thrilled her to the bone in it’s primal essence. Noting a lone figure moving towards the dusky woods, her instincts instantly came alert. Who would be going out there in the gathering darkness, into a powerful storm? Not an intruder, since the person was going away from the school. She studied the form in the twilight and with a gasp recognized Logan’s long-legged, powerfully-built silhouette.
He was walking unsteadily. Was the man drunk, to go out in such a storm? He’d certainly not behaved like himself that afternoon when he’d sworn at her with a snarl. Storm headed for the rear door in pursuit.
The wind ripped branch tips and clattered them onto the forest floor as Logan lurched toward a favorite tree. He knew there would be a decent place to settle into the roots of the ancient oak and rest through the cooling storm. Dancing balls of twinkling light moved through the treetops on both sides of the path as he searched in the darkness. The ghostly orbs seemed to bob and sway among the trees, sometimes following him, sometimes leading him as will-o-the-wisp. In his fevered state they seemed harmless enough. He let them lead him further, the oak tree forgotten.
“Logan,” a phantom voice spoke, causing him to turn toward the west, the sound, into the sunset. There in the rippling winds stood Jean, her hair once again short, a simple white cloth wrapped around her long, pale limbs in the driving wind. Her voice seemed to sing through his senses like the storm-born wind itself, “Go back now.”
Stunned at the sight, Logan felt his knees buckle and the soft floor of the forest come up to hit his legs. He gaped at the figure before him. “No,” he breathed the words, “this isn’t real. This can’t be real....”
“It’s not your time. Go back now...” then her voice faded into the darkness at the exact moment a spear of lightning struck a nearby tree, leaving a shock of blinding white light and ear-splitting noise in it’s wake.
The phantom was gone. Heavy drops of rain began slowly falling, striking Logan’s bared forearms where he’d rolled up his sleeves to the elbow. The slow trickles of water over his skin felt like slithering flesh. The droplets were little snakes, slowly sliding over his skin, wreathing his arms, turning into dripping liquid silver. They were cold.
A man squatted down in front of Logan where he knelt, bringing his eyes up to stare straight into the face of William Stryker. “You didn’t really think you’d ever be free of it, surely? It’s indestructible, boy,” Stryker’s soft, slow, arrogant drawl explained. “You left me to drown, weighed down with that log chain; but I’m still here, and my handiwork’s still inside you, and you’re still my personal Frankenstein’s monster. I made you, Wolverine, and I’m keepin’ you.”
With a roar of rage, the claws shrieked out through both hands. Ignoring the familiar, welcomed pain, Logan buried both sets of claws to the hilt in Stryker’s chest. With a burst of mocking laughter, Stryker’s flesh collapsed into more of the little silver snakes. They slithered over Logan’s hands, hung suspended from his claws like Spanish moss, writhed on the ground around him.
The little silver snakes began biting into his arms as Logan stared in horror, the serpents pushing into the flesh of his arms and burrowing deeper. His blood ran cold and with a gasp he started trying to shake them off, but his arms grew heavier. Panting with fear, he tried using the claws to scrape them off, but he cut his arms and wrists, more blood pouring out. The snakes were layering his bones with more adamantium, weighing him down until he couldn’t move.
Collapsing prone on the ground, he lay helpless while the weight of the metal pressed him deeper into the forest floor, vines wreathing up to cover his legs and hands, pinning him down, rooting him in, pulling him under, absorbing him into the cycle of growth, blossoms, rot, compost, life, death...
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Ororo composes a letter, Magneto’s plans are once again changed for him, and Logan has a bizarre experience in the forest. NOTE: The last paragraph of this chapter was inspired by a scene in another Hugh Jackman movie, “The Fountain.”