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Disclaimer: Same as before.


Warning: Character death.


Chapter.13.


From where Logan sat, in his small, black Ford, parked just behind one of the large, old Oaks that lined Graymalkin Road, he could see two covert teams around the edges of the Lensherr compound. Following them here without being spotted had been doddle, after all, it was his job. He’d hung back for almost half an hour now, watching from the rain streaked window of his car; the inactivity of the police officers being reassuring at least. But it was time to act; all he had to do was slip past the officers and then make sure that Lensherr’s guards saw him. Once they had, their was no way that Summers errand boys could stop him from entering the house without blowing their cover.


Flipping open his glove box, Logan delved his hand into the disorder inside, pulling out a middle sized revolver and placing it in his shoulder-holster, fixed onto his left side. As he reached over to put it in he winced a little, his ribs on the right side still being a little tender from the beating he’d received nearly two days ago. Ignoring it, he went back into the glove box and retrieved a second, much smaller gun. This time, he reached down to his ankle, and pushed it into the small, leather pocket of his ankle-holster. He was ready and set. With no further delay, he got out of his car, and made his way down to the broad, wet windswept street to the plush mansion four hundred yards away.


* * *


Scott had the ideal vantage point from the attic of the vacant Boat House on the hill at the back of the Lensherr Mansion. From its high position, he could see all activity in the back rooms of the plush house, but unfortunately, not the office. But he was so elevated that he could even see the front gate from over the tops of the gothic-style turrets on the slate panelled roof, the driveway was so long. Although the row of neat Conifers that lined the gravelled pathway were still a slight obstruction to his view.


He walked away from the window for a moment into the darkness of the empty room, his radio that kept him in touch with all his units at all times, gripped firmly in his right hand. Raising that arm up, he wiped away the thin layer of sweat from his brow with the back of his thick, starched cuff, the brass button on it, detailed with the New York State insignia, scratching lightly across the skin. So far, everything was going to plan, his teams that had been posted to watch the interaction in the main parlour had reported that everything had gone well; Magnus and the twins had taken her fabrication at face value. Although he was a little concerned when it was reported to him that Wanda had left the room shortly after Ororo.


Scott was waiting for word on that situation right now as his first team tried to get into an appropriate position to survey the office. But it was difficult for them to do so without being seen by a small gaggle of goons smoking and chatting amongst them selves, sheltering under the eaves at that corner of the house. He brought the radio up to his mouth, ready to inquire of any change, but then stopped short of pressing the small, black button on the side. A minute or so longer he’d give them, and then he’d try.


Going back over to the window, Scott lent on the sill, keeping most of his body out of sight, peeking round just enough to see the house. In a glint of light he saw...a dark figure in the drive? No, he must have been mistaken. The strange light of the storm must have been playing tricks with his eyes. Or it must have been one of Lensherr’s men. As another crack of lightening lit up the proceedings, it revealed that there was no-one in the drive or by the ten foot Conifers that lined it. He must have been seeing things he reassured himself...just a trick of the light.


* * *


Wanda pressed her finger on the trigger a little tighter, pushing off the door frame to stand straight, and then she took a few steps, lingering and slow, into the room. Ororo still held tightly to the envelope and the lighter, but became increasingly aware of the cold lump between her legs, trying to think of a way to get to it.


“Put it down---now.” She came further into the room but Ororo did nothing as she stared down the barrel end of the gun. Its dark, empty hole starring at her like a black, unblinking eye. A million options ran trough her mind; it wasn’t the first time she’d been caught in the act, so she wasn’t at a complete loss at how to handle this.


Placing the lighter and the envelope onto the desk, Ororo laid her hands casually by her sides. She eyed Wanda through the darkness with a subtle confidence; it wasn’t the first time she’d had a gun pointed at her in this kind of intimate situation either. “Well this is tricky.” She intoned seriously, yet in the coldly callous manner of someone who’d just been caught in the act with another woman’s husband. Protractedly raising a perfectly curved, platinum eyebrow at Wanda, her hand continued to creep round to the front of her black dress, so slowly that even the scarlet-clad girl’s unflinching attention didn’t catch it.


“I knew you were here for Forge---I could see you were lying.”


Ororo raised her light coloured eyebrow even higher, mockingly so. “You did not see fit to question me in front of your father, girl.” She cocked her head to the side, an indeterminately arrogant yet sincere look on her face. The use of the term ‘girl’, instantly placing her beneath Ororo, making Wanda question her own authority. “What do you intend to do now?”

Wanda held the .45 steady, readjusting her grip ever-so-slightly to make it firmer. “I knew you were a scheming little bitch the moment I set eyes on you.” The corners of her mouth twitched into a knowing smirk. “What woman doesn’t want her husband killed for selfish reasons?”


Ororo was about to retort when she stopped to consider Wanda’s words. Lensherr’s daughter was intuitive enough to realise that Ororo really did hold a grudge against Forge, despite the fact that in all reason, it looked as if she were working for him. She was obviously a smart young girl. Although, Ororo didn’t want Forge dead---out of the way would do. Prison perhaps? But crucially, she’d made no link between her and Scott Summers, which was a blessing, of sorts.


Her hand continued to creep down slowly, until she made a quick movement, dipping it underneath her dress and quickly grasping the heavy revolver. Wanda let off a shot; the lethal projectile whizzing past Ororo’s left earlobe and smashing the led-lined pane behind her. The storm’s sudden insurgence covered the noise of shattering glass. It gave her the time to get the gun from her stockings, fumbling for a second with the hammer before she managed to pull it back and aim it clearly at the eldest twin by two minutes.


“Now what Wanda?” She asked in a slightly breathy, deep tone as she held her gun just as steady. Neither one said anything then, as the storm raged in the background. Each woman holding their ground with equal determination. It appeared the deadlock would be uneasily broken...


* * *


“Hey, you see somethin’?” Carry Falstaff called over to Malone through the wailing wind, cocking his gun up, subconsciously to the ready.


‘Shortie’ looked out into the blackness, squinting from the gravel and stray leaves that had been whipped into the night air, and from the pounding rain that dripped from the stout rim of his hat . “Nah! I don’t see nothin’!” He looked again into the night and from behind a large, rhythmically swaying Conifer he saw a small, stocky figure emerge , making a direct path toward the front door that the two men were guarding.


“Hey! Who the fucks there?” But his words were more or less smothered by a phenomenal clap of thunder. The figure continued on its course, only becoming obvious to the two men when it reached the glow of the intermittently flickering porch light. To ‘Shortie’ Malone’s horror, he recognised the figure immediately. “Detective Logan.” He gasped.


“What?” Falstaff asked his fellow guard.


“Urr---urr nothin’.” He tripped over his words as Logan came up to them; soaking wet, a vicious scowl on his face, the rain dripping from his lamb-chops pitifully.


“I want t’ see Lensherr.” He demanded cantankerously.


“Oh really?” Falstaff scoffed. “And what makes you think we’ll---.”


“Alright, alright---we’ll take you in.” Malone interrupted hastily, his nervous eyes darting between his comrade and the man he used to know on the force. He understood from Logan’s look; if he didn’t comply with his request, he’d blow the whistle on him. They’d never really got on when they were on the force together.


“What?!” Falstaff bellowed indignantly, glaring at ‘Shortie’ with a barely disguised sneer. “We don’t even know how the fuck he is! What will Lensherr say?!”


Malone kept his dull, grey eyes on Logan who returned his dark gaze in kind, but he addressed Falstaff as he spoke. “He’ll wanna see this guy---trust me.” He could only just contain the growl in his words. Carry glared at his partner for a moment and then shifted his hazel eyes over to the ‘visitor’.


“Whatever you say ‘Shortie’.” Falstaff said; a hint of suspicion in his voice. He ran his up and down Logan’s form sceptically, taking in the grey trench coat that had turned a dark charcoal grey from the rain, spying the dark shabby suit underneath through the glint of an opening at the front. “Come here.” He ordered darkly, not caring about the look Logan gave him.


Logan stepped forwards towards the lanky, fair headed man before Malone could protest. Reaching forwards, Carry Falstaff plunged his hands under Logan’s heavy, wet coat, patting up and down his sides. It didn’t take him long to discover the revolver in the shoulder holster. Wrenching it free from its leather pocket, Falstaff held it up, eyeing Logan with a critical yet cocky look, raising his eyebrow at him from beneath his black Trilby, laced with a fashionable stream of white silk. He jerked the gun up and down in his leather gloved hand a couple of times, as if to assess the weight. Without a word, Falstaff slipped the gun into his back pocket, flipping the corner of his long coat back and slotting it in swiftly, never for a moment taking his knowing eyes off Logan; who returned his gaze with a defiant distain.


Malone watched all this with a quiet panic his breath speeding up but being audible to him alone. “Come on.” He shouted to Logan, somewhat relieved that Falstaff had ‘satisfied’ his suspicion.


Logan looked up at the man who had searched him, looking angry at the intrusion but if his searcher had looked for it he’d have seen the hint of victory somewhere in the short man’s light eyes. With that lingering look Logan started off into the house.


“You go with him.” ‘Shortie told the other man. “Take---take him to the Boss. He’s in the parlour.” Malone was backing off from the porch all the time that he spoke the words.


“Yeah---alright.” Falstaff’s eyebrows knitted slightly as he watched Malone stumble nervously backwards, out into the storm. But paying his odd behaviour no more attention he looked down at Logan, motioning his head in the direction he wished him to follow; he and the visitor entered the Lensherr compound.


*


‘Shortie’ Malone waited for the front door to shut firmly before he took off down the driveway, his solid shoes pounding on the lose chips as he ran from the mansion, he ran so fast and so haphazardly that his gun fell from his shoulder but he didn’t care. The loss of the weight allowed him to run faster towards the gate, his pace making the rain sting his face viciously, like tiny air gun pellets hitting the exposed flesh. He only got halfway to freedom though before a whistling sound ripped through the sound of the rain and the howling wind and with a muffled spurt, a fountain of deep red exploded from ‘Shortie’s’ large forehead. The rifle bullet centre the centre of his, passing through it neatly and exiting through the back of his skull. The entrance and exit wounds were not particularly large, mere red dots really as the felled man collapsed to the ground like a sack of spuds; arms and legs splayed out awkwardly.


“Nice shot.” Cain Marko said to one of his foot soldiers by the name of Conrad Lee.


“Never mind that.” Forge chastised tersely as he pushed past the large bulk of his partner in carnage Cain Marko, coming out from behind a Conifer tree. “Let’s get this over and done with.” He only spared a short thought for the several men they’d already disposed of around the perimeters of the grounds, by their uniforms obviously law men. So he came to the conclusion that he’d made the correct decision to hit Magnus tonight as Scott Summers seemed to have had the same idea.


“Are we gonna do this?” Marko asked, almost too eagerly.


After a moments pause, as he stared at Lensherr’s house and thought of all the advantages that that damn Polack would have and he wouldn’t, and he felt vindicated in his actions. His thoughts flashed to his wife for a second, and her ‘traitorous’ actions and it renewed the fire of anger that lulled in the pit of his stomach, never showing itself to the surface world, least of all Cain Marko. He conducted himself with a sly calm. This all appeared be a professional vendetta, but in truth, it was personal---very personal. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. The several armed men that Marko and Forge had amassed, assembled behind them, all with guns at the ready, at least thirty of them. Some of them Forge’s men, some of them Marko’s and the rest being ‘Black’ Tom Cassidy’s men. They all piled in, not expecting too many forces in their way as they plundered through to their prize target; Magnus Lensherr.


*


Crackle *“ALPHA ONE TEAM!”* Crackle. *“OMEGA ONE TEAM, COME IN!”* Crackle. Scott didn’t know why he was trying to contact his two perimeter teams---he knew they’d been taken out by Forge and Marko as soon as he saw them and their rag-tag army of men ambled up the driveway. He thought for a moment, stepping back into the dull hollow of the empty room. Running his hand over the bottom half of his chiselled face; over the grimly set line of his mouth and the uncharacteristically stubble-laden square chin, Scott refrained from panic. But his face still held a veneer of concern as he took the hand-set back to his mouth and firmly squeezed the button that made it crackle back into life. * “Gamma Team, Alpha Two Team, Omega Two Team, come in.”*


In quick succession, the leaders of all three teams confirmed they were recipients of the communication, with short stout, “Yes sir’s”.


Scott paused for a moment, taking the hand-set a few more inches from his mouth. Taking in a deep breath, he shook his head slightly as he exhaled slowly, as if to clear it---as if to assure himself that the decision he was about to make was a valid one. He pressed the button once more. * “Listen up boys---part of the original plan is still intact, but---.”* Taking the radio away again, Scott’s mouth set back into the stern line it had been moments ago, somehow of its own volition. * “Listen”*, he began again, clearing his throat, * “We will not just be taking out the Lensherr gang---the Forge and Marko mobs have just come onto the Lensherr grounds---they are now also your targets.”*


He let the radio fall silent, as with soft brown eyes that glistened with moisture at his briefly pricked conscience, he watched the ever blackening clouds outside. They were so dark in fact that they made the night sky look twice as black as normal; the black of the veil of death that once it descends is all consuming and infinite. And under this abysmal canopy, the most prominent members of New York’s gangland were about to meet their maker...at Scott Summer’s sole request.


“He’d understand.” Scott whispered to himself, eyes shut tight to the storm that ravaged the sky. “...father, you have to understand...you have to....”


* * *


“Do you know how many men my father as employed around here?” Wanda asked the rhetorical question with a hint of incredulous laughter in her voice. “If you killed me, you wouldn’t get more than an inch outside the front door before they pumped you full of holes!”


“What difference does it really make Wanda?”


The dark-haired girl’s face twitched, creasing with a questioning look, which she attempted to quell immediately. Ororo caught it instantly.



“If I don’t shoot you, I’ll be taken to your father and he will have me killed anyway, for double-crossing him.” Ororo let her tongue run over her painted bottom lip nervously, keeping her blue, wide eyes straight ahead. She could taste the salt of the sweat on that lip and then became conscious of the way her chest was beginning to heave up and down with a steadily increasing pace, her breasts straining against the plunging neckline of her moderately respectable black dress. “So, if I kill you now, it makes no difference as to what happens to me.” Ororo waited for Wanda to reply, but she said nothing and revealed nothing. “Does it?” It was more a statement; or at least an insistence for her to speak if it be a direct reply or not.


Wanda smiled, her full blood-red smile, “Well, maybe it would be best for me to simply get this over and done with right---.” Ororo squeezed the trigger, and as the bullet shot by Wanda, she watched as the younger woman was just a fraction of a second to late to dodge it completely; the lead bullet just clipping the edge of her left shoulder. But she didn’t let out much of a noise as a spray of red burst like a scantly fed fountain from the wound, which in truth was little more than a graze. Wanda clutched at it, still with her gun in hand, stemming the measly flow of vital fluid. Ororo darted from behind the desk, taking up the heavily packed brown envelope, making her way for the door that Wanda had stumbled backwards into, propping herself against the frame. But she figured she’d get past her easily, given her state and the shock she was probably suffering from.


She figured wrong. As Ororo sped past, intending to head straight for the front door, unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough. Wanda mustered enough energy, as her stinging shoulder continued to seep, to pull her gun-bearing hand back and swing it towards Ororo as she passed, catching her smartly on her left temple.


The singer was literally seeing stars as she fell to the ground, her vision completely knocked off sync. Her hands suddenly became weak and her grip on the revolver and the envelope relinquished against her will. A semi blackness came over her, though she didn’t for any period black-out, it was like she was floating in the vague place in between.


“You bitch!” Wanda hissed as she ignored the pain in her shoulder, checking just enough to make sure the bullet had passed straight through. Grasping a hefty handful of Ororo’s ample white mane, she managed to pull her up onto her knees. Ororo didn’t make much of a noise in protest; she was still startled to a degree---that was until she felt Wanda jam the barrel of her gun into the small hollow at the base of her skull. She could almost feel the pressure of Wanda’s finger on the trigger. “I’d kill you now you fucking whore.” She spat the words like particularly acidic bile. “But I’m sure my father can come up with a much more---excruciating punishment than the meeting of your brain with a bullet.” Wanda tugged at Ororo’s hair forcing her to her feet, but she didn’t give the girl the satisfaction of any small utterance of displeasure or pain. Letting go of the white waterfall, but with the gun still against Ororo’s body, it slipped slowly down her back as Wanda bent to pick up the envelope from the ground, not wanting to take the gun away from her for even a second.


Ororo felt the gun slide back up her back as Wanda stood straight until the slightly warmed (from being fired), cylindrical length of metal was once again in the cutch of her skull.


“Move.” Wanda ordered quietly yet firmly. And Ororo did. Her scalp still emitting the dull sting from her hair being pulled and the side of her head throbbing from the previous hit. As she was guided back to the parlour, she decided she’d just have to play this one by ear.


The pair walked in a cautious silence down the wide hallway, their dull, thudding footsteps on the central strip of patterned carpet the only real sound coming from either one. Ororo watched door after door go by until they came to the parlour. A bright, almost yellow light spilled out from underneath, and voices could be heard muttering heatedly, above the ever-present rumble. Wanda stopped and by extension Ororo did too; long-nailed fingers closing stronger around the top of her arm whilst the gun was pressed more vehemently. They both listened to the voices and although they couldn’t ascertain exactly what was being said, they surmised that there were more voices in that room than the two they had left no more than fifteen minutes ago, twenty minutes at most. Once Wanda had worked out that there were four people in the parlour, three of which she knew, she pushed Ororo forwards again, towards the door. Just as her chest almost touched the pine, Ororo spoke. “What exactly are you going to tell him?” She tried to turn her head, to get a glimpse at her captor, but the gun wouldn’t let her.


“Just open the door.”


Giving up her attempt to look over her shoulder at Wanda, Ororo did as she was told, clasping the brass handle and pushing the heavy weight of the large door inwards. It was all she could do to stop her eyeballs from falling from her sockets when she clapped them on the mystery owner of the fourth voice.


“Logan!” She attempted to make a rush over to him, her delight at seeing him being overwhelming, but Wanda’s fingers clenched tighter to her arm and the gun pressed once more. Ororo felt it hit bone forcibly through skin, the epidermis feeling more fragile than ever, like it could be broken if it were pushed any harder into it.


The momentary flash of tenderness and relief that came to Logan’s face on seeing his lover was quickly replaced by an angry grimace at seeing the gun and Wanda’s grasping hand. He motioned to go to the two women but was stopped when Lensherr said, “Now, now Mr. Logan---if what you say is true, then you have nothing to worry about.” Magnus looked over to his daughter, and in that look some kind of unspoken communication happened between them and Wanda released Ororo’s arm, allowing her to rush over to Logan, who embraced her with immense eagerness, like they’d been parted for eons rather than hours. But he primarily kept his attention on Lensherr as he pressed Ororo to him, kissing her at the side of her head through her thick hair, serious eyes fixed on the crime boss he’d come to see.


“What was she doing?” Magnus asked as he turned his attention onto Wanda, Pietro and Carry Falstaff watching everything silently from behind him.


Wanda held up the brown envelope, sort of flapping it in her father’s direction as she said, quite proudly, “She was going to burn them---I stopped her just in time.”


Manus nodded absently at his daughter as he turned to the embracing couple, who were now both turned to face him, something definitely defiant in their stance. “Well, Ms. Munroe, what do you have to say?”


Ororo stared at him, still insolent to the hilt, despite her slightly too tight clutch around Logan’s midriff. But she remained silent as she had no idea what Logan had already said to him. Lensherr shifted his gaze to Logan, walking towards the pair until he was only around thirty inches from them. Clasping his hands behind his back, in an almost erudite manner, he looked from one to the other, before settling on Logan once more. “So, you say Chief Scott Summers put her up to this?”


“Yes.”


“He was using her to get the papers and to destroy them?”


“Yes.” The word was grinded out with a kind of quiet impatience this time.


“And why should I believe you Mr. Logan?!” Magnus turned his back on the pair, stepping away towards a patiently quiet Pietro and Falstaff. With a small motion of his head doorwards, Carry Falstaff got the message and left the room. Nobody watched him go.


“Why the hell would I be lyin’?” Logan shouted angrily. “Do you think she’s doin’ this for Forge?!”


“I don’t know---why don’t you tell me?” He snapped as he turned back to face the couple, any hint of good humour gone from his weathered but handsome face.


Logan clutched at her a little tighter, replying with a quiet seriousness, “Do ya think I’d be here---riskin’ my neck fer her---if she were still with that son-of-a-bitch?!”


Lensherr thought this over. If what Logan had told him were true, he supposed that it would make a little more sense. But he’d grown so used to being in a state of perpetual distrust with all that he came across; it was difficult to make the switch even when your gut instinct told you to. No, Erik Magnus Lensherr had been a crook for far to long to give in to that old chestnut. “To be quite frank Mr. Logan---I couldn’t care less one way or the other as to the circumstances of her betrayal or your arrival---you’re both dead wood as far as I’m concerned.” He dawdled over to the open drinks cabinet, next to the large set of full bookcases that ran almost the entire length of the south wall, bursting with old and new volumes cased in brown, green and cadium red covers. Duly pouring out a scotch in a fine cut crystal glass, adding precisely three cubes of ice, Magnus didn’t face them when he said, “And as we all know---dead wood is utterly useless.”


Before anyone could respond a series of loud dull bangs clattered through the air; everyone stopped to take note but none could be sure of what they’d heard. Was it thunder or gun fire?


“Pietro?” The young man’s attention was wrenched from its unseen tenure sharply.


“Yes father?”


“Go and find Dukes for me,” he took a leisurely sip of his drink, “and tell him he’s got a job---two jobs to be more precise.”


“Lensherr?” Logan was astonishingly un-angry as he watched his would-be executioner go back to his chair, his red velvet lounging robe with the beautifully embroidered mauve collar and rope-belt pulled tight around him. “I’ve got a proposition.”


“Oh? Do tell.” He almost snickered into his raised glass. Over the years he’d heard every plea in the book---it interested him to see if anyone could come up with anything new!


“You can get rid of me, if takin’ someone’s life is the only thing that’s gonna satisfy ya---but ya don’t need to touch ‘Ro.” Logan tried his best not to look to his right at Ororo, he didn’t want to see the look on her face. In fact, he couldn’t look at her at all---it would tear him apart. “You’ve got yer precious fuckin’ ‘Tufano’ crap and ya can go out and ruin Worthington’s life, Summers’ life and whoever the fuck else ya want to.” His voice lowered immeasurably, “...but ya don’t need Ororo’s---she hasn’t done anything.”


“On the contrary dear boy!” Lensherr’s free hand slapped against the left side of his chest, over the heart, but in a mock gesture of sympathy for his cause, landing there with a richly muffled thump. “The girl’s done plenty---isn’t that right Ms. Munroe?” He raised his glass to her, as if in toast.


At that moment, Pietro, who had been dawdling in his father’s request, rather too engrossed in the latest exchange, only just began to open the parlour’s double doors to run the errand when the huge hunks of pine flew swiftly inwards. If it wasn’t for extraordinarily quick reflexes, the spindly Pietro may very well have been crushed by Fred ‘The Blob’ Dukes lumbering form literally falling into the room. A thick clot of dark, almost black blood poured from the large man’s gapping mouth, his open, plain grey jacket revealed a white shirt shot full of holes, large poppy-like stains spreading from them; red with black centres. They dotted his chest like so many pin-points on a dot-to-dot puzzle; elaborate and cloistering around the chest area, hence the blood from the mouth. He made a tired ‘huff’ sound as he fell to the ground, more or less at Pietro’s feet, his fat face distorted as it hunched up its ripples against the carpet and the black blood from his still open mouth began to drip. Drip, drip, drip, like an incessantly leaking tap; the dark droplets hit the ground, soaking into the thick pile as soon as their tiny heart beats had been heard.


Ororo, Logan, Wanda, Pietro and even Magnus; they were all stunned into silence at the unexpected sight of the dying man crashing into the room, but the shock didn’t have chance to settle as his killers entered also.


“Magnus.” Forge said as if he were greeting the man at some dignified social event.


“Forge.” Lensherr reciprocated, “I wish I could say it were a pleasure to see you---or you.” He added darkly as he shifted his gaze to Cain Marko.


Forge laughed derisively, but Marko remained stoic, eager to get this over and done with as fast as possible, his gun pointed squarely at Lensherr. But that simply wasn’t going to happen as Forge turned his attention to his wife and the man in whose arms she was held tightly. Walking over to them, gun now aimed at the pair, he stopped just in front of his wife. Ororo held her head up high, she wasn’t about to let this low life make her feel guilty...or scared. He looked at her and then down at Logan; the struggle with which he was retaining control was apparent to all.



“I’m going to take immense delight in this.” He stated quietly as he brought the gun up to Ororo’s heart against a background of continuing gunfire between his pieced together mob and what remained of Scott Summers’ squads, the cries of dying men filling the air. And then everything seemed to happen all at once. First the lights blacked out, the storm finally taking its toll on the house generator, at which point Logan made a grab for the gun that threatened his love. As the two men fell to the floor, in a furious tussle, Pietro drew his gun as Wanda aimed for Cain Marko with hers but they were too late...Marko pulled his automatic rifle, pumping his gangland rival with two rounds in the chest and head before their own bullets took effect.


“FATHER---NO!” Wanda cried out mournfully as she rushed past his assassin, dropping to the floor and cradling the already dead man in her arms; his limp body pressed to her chest as wide blue eyes stared into the abyss of nothingness. Pietro made no move though, perhaps he even felt nothing, but there was a kind of revolt that ran through his body. In all the action and confusion, nobody noticed the Gamma team, lining up at the window of the parlour. Nobody heard the order to open fire. The first thing anybody knew of it was when the windows shattered inwards, in a hail of gunfire...


Pietro jerked like a puppet on particularly erratic strings as the bullets were pumped indiscriminately into his body. After being held upright only by their sheer force, his thin lifeless body dropped to the floor.


In their struggle, Forge had somehow managed to force his way on top of Logan, despite the discrepancy in strength, and was now forcing his gun against the shorter man’s head. Logan kept a firm grip on Forge’s wrists though, and was resisting him with all his strength until in a flash of inspiration he let go. Instead, he grabbed onto Forge’s neck and pushed his head upwards. It wasn’t too long before one or two of the stray bullets the officers were still firing off, took affect. Several hit him in the back and he slumped forwards onto Logan with a muffled gurgling sound, still breathing, though it appeared perhaps not for too much longer.


It would have been a ‘triumph’; it would have been a tainted ‘victory’, had it not been for the fact that one of those stray projectiles had been an inch to the left rather than to the right.


“ORORO!” Logan watched helpless, as one of the last rounds to be fired hit Ororo in the back, passing straight through her chest as she had been running over to him to stop Forge’s attempt on his life. Pushing Forge off him, Logan quickly got to Ororo, who’d swiftly collapsed into a pile on the floor. Scooping her from the floor, he swiped her white hair from covering her face and in a manner not to dissimilar to Wanda, cradled her to him. Looking down in desperation at her blood-drained face and half closed eyelids, revealing enough of the blue of her eyes to show their fading embers, he pleaded, “‘Ro! Come on darlin’, speak to me! ‘Ro! Please, ‘RO!---RO!, please darlin, please...don’t do this to me....please...”


As the law enforcement officers piled into the room, the lightening let out its last few blasts of fury and the once howling wind and driving rain calmed to a degree, their lives just...ebbing away...


~The Epilogue~





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