Back to GatefoldIssue #2 by Meriades Rai
Sept 2007 |
Overshadowed in modern times by the more commercial and fashionable districts of Central London and the West End, the venerable southeast borough of Greenwich – located on the South Bank of the River Thames between Woolwich and Blackheath – remained the most beautiful and historically significant region that the old city had to offer. Dominated by the elongated diamond of Greenwich Park, the borough was home to the celebrated University of Greenwich and Trinity College of Music – occupying the magnificent buildings that once comprised the Old Royal Naval College, designed by Sir Christopher Wren – as well as the National Maritime Museum, Vanbrugh Castle, and the Trafalgar Tavern, built in 1837 and favoured dining establishment of Victorian literati such as Charles Dickens, William Thackeray and Wilkie Collins. And then, of course, there was the Greenwich Royal Observatory.
Founded in the 17th Century by King Charles II for the purposes of astronomy and the study and implementation of longitude, the Observatory was comprised of Flamsteed House – another architectural triumph of the genius Wren – plus the Meridian Buildings and the Great Equatorial Building, with its distinct, onion-shaped dome. The work conducted by the Royal Observatory had vacated this site after the end of the Second World War following extensive damage during The Blitz, but these wonderful edifices still served an essential purpose as a museum and for academic research. Nestled sleepily amidst the glorious greenery of the park, the Observatory attracted tens of thousands of tourists and students every year.
Doctor Stefan Strang had himself visited Greenwich on three occasions in the past decade. Not once had he noticed the crooked house squatting two hundred yards from the Observatory, even though it was positioned squarely in the middle of an open stretch of grass between two flanking avenues of oaks and yews, and was therefore hardly missable. Stefan stood now at the base of a flight of weathered stone steps that led up to a pair of double doors, oak hinged and framed with ornate wrought iron, and sheltered beneath an overhanging porch decorated with gargoyles. It was, to be blunt, a truly ugly fucker of a house. He arched a dark eyebrow.
“You know,” he murmured, “I can’t help but notice that, even though we’re standing out like a couple of arseholes at a dick convention, no-one seems to be paying us the slightest bit of attention…”
Stefan was dressed almost entirely in black – slacks, shirt, jacket and shoes, all tres chic and freshly purchased since arriving in London that morning – with only a pair of gold and silver gloves to add a splash of colour. With a black fedora hat worn at a rakish angle, accentuating his roguishly handsome countenance, he certainly didn’t blend in to his surroundings. The old man alongside him was even more conspicuous; snow-haired and vulpine, clad in a green cloak that did little to mask his emaciated frame, The Ancient leant heavily upon a gnarled old cane as he regarded his companion with obvious disdain.
“A perpetual enchantment,” he murmured, his voice parched and scratchy. “This Sanctum Sanctorum has remained hidden from the prying eyes of mankind since it was built over three hundred years ago.”
“Three hundred sounds about right. You realise there’s not a single fucking right angle to be seen? It looks like it’s ready to fall over pissed.”
The Ancient smiled thinly. “Trust me, Doctor, the Sanctum will outlast us all. Its foundations are rooted not just in the earth beneath our feet but also in the intricate network of magical essence that threads betwixt dimensions, forming a knot of immense power at this very location.”
“Uh-huh. And I only drink bourbon on weekends. Nice view, though, I’ll give you that.”
“Quite! I’ve always held firm to the belief that there’s no environment more splendid than an English park in - ”
“I was thinking more of those two blondes in the short skirts lying in the sun over there. I swear to you, the one on the left? No knickers whatsoever. Shameless.”
The Ancient’s brow furrowed. “Sometimes, Stefan, I wonder if the seriousness of our situation hasn’t passed you by…”
“Other-worldly supernatural menace threatening existence as we know it, with me somehow stuck in the middle of it? Don’t worry. I’m hardly likely to fucking forget, am I?”
Stefan sighed and stared up at the fascia of the crooked house, a peculiar amalgamation of different period styles – Edwardian, Georgian, Art Deco – that didn’t necessarily blend well. An enormous stained-glass window, circular and convex and ribbed with a curious, criss-cross pattern of lead trim, dominated the third and uppermost storey of the building. It reminded him, simultaneously, of an eye and the ventricles of a heart. He fancied he could almost see it pulsing.
“We should make ourselves at home,” The Ancient murmured, his eyes twin pools of inscrutable shadow as he observed his companion. “We must ready ourselves for what’s to come.”
“These other poor bastards you mentioned? My fellow ‘disciples’? I know you said they’d make their own way here, but if they’re in danger, the same way I was back in Stuttgart, then shouldn’t we - ”
“They will face personal challenges, as you did. But it’s important they overcome them alone, to prepare them, to allow them to access the powers manifested through the artefacts I have gifted them.”
“I wasn’t alone. You were there to help me.”
“To encourage you. And, in spirit, you shall be on hand to encourage your future allies in turn.”
“But you just said - ”
The Ancient raised a withered hand, his expression now stern. “Enough,” he breathed. “Our journey has left me tired and I require the pertinent remedy.”
“Some kind of mystic meditation, right?”
“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a nice cup of tea and a digestive biscuit.”
Stefan snorted. “Now who isn’t taking things seriously?”
“When in England, my friend, when in England…”
The Ancient chuckled to himself, then turned to climb the steps. Stefan Strang rolled his eyes beneath the brim of his hat. Primordial evil, localised magical essence, some old tart with a mental screw loose, and a sinister looking house that hundreds of people walked past every day without even noticing?
He scowled. It was enough to land someone in a fucking lunatic asylum…
MARVEL 2000 PRESENTS
"REHABILITATION"
Written by Meriades Rai
“Do you know why you’re here, Samantha?”
The eighteen-year-old girl cast the man sitting on the other side of the desk a strange look. Her eyes, a delicate cerulean blue, peered out suspiciously from behind a curtain fringe of platinum blonde hair, and her rosebud lower lip trembled. So frail and bird-like, she all but disappeared in the shapeless white smock she wore, and when she gathered her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms about her bare knees she appeared heartbreakingly vulnerable.
“I’m here because I killed a woman named Barbara Norriss,” the girl said, in a tiny voice touched with a lilt of Scandinavian accent. “I thought she was trying to hurt me, but… but she wasn’t. She was just the person who lived in the house at the end of my street. I know that now. I didn’t - ”
“No, no.” Doctor Anthony Ludgate waved a hand impatiently, and sighed. “I didn’t mean why are you here at the Institution – I meant, why are you here, in my office, today? Hmm?”
Samantha clenched and unclenched her fingers as her arms tightened about her knees. “I… don’t know?” she whispered. “I’ve been good, I swear! I’ve been taking my medication, and I haven’t hurt anyone for weeks now…”
“That’s right. And all the better we keep it that way, yes?” Ludgate leaned forward, his dark eyes narrowing sharply. He was a pompous prig but no less imposing for that, broad across the shoulders and heavy about the waist, with untidy hair that remained jet black even though receding and a brooding countenance. Yet it was more than mere size that allowed the doctor to loom over poor Samantha Parrington. A classic victim complex married with a nigh pathological fear of authority, she withered in his presence like a flower denied the sun.
“I’m told you had a visitor yesterday, Samantha,” Ludgate declared, his cadence a rich, Scottish brogue every bid as domineering as his patient’s inflection was delicate. “An elderly gentleman. A most curious incident, however, for while his presence is clearly documented in the official records, none of the staff appear to have taken note of his name. This is a severe breach of protocol, made all the more serious by the fact that this man seems to have presented you with a gift when no-one was paying attention. Fortunately, a spot security check this morning has brought the truth of the matter to light…”
Samantha flinched as the doctor opened a drawer on his side of the desk. He withdrew what lay inside and held it aloft, his expression accusatory. Samantha gasped.
“That’s mine!” she wailed, suddenly animated in her seat. “The Ancient gave it to me!”
She lunged forward then, but Ludgate reared backwards, protected by the desk. The object in his hands glittered in the overhead lights.
“Sit down, Samantha, else I’ll have no choice but to sedate you!” the doctor commanded. “Do you know what this is? Do you? It’s a weapon. A sword hilt – medieval by the look of it, although I’m no expert in such matters. No blade, thank God, otherwise there’s no telling what harm you would have done to yourself, or others for that matter. But, even so. Weighty enough that you could still have used it to perpetrate serious injury. Whoever that idiotic old man was, I’ll have him up on criminal charges as soon as - ”
“He’s The Ancient,” Samantha hissed, jumping up from her chair once more. “He’s the saviour – the saviour of the world! He gave me Dragonfang, the sword of the Valkyrie, for protection against the fiends that - ”
“Sit down!”
Doctor Ludgate slapped the desk with the palm of his hand, shaking his head in frustration. The delicate, innocent girl of before was now gone, replaced by a shrieking harpy – and it wasn’t the first time in their acquaintance that he’d witnessed such a transformation. Samantha Parrington suffered from a number of extreme, delusional mental illnesses, including paranoia and borderline schizophrenia. She had been declared insane at trial twelve months previously following a murderous attack on a neighbour whom Samantha had believed to be an agent of Satan plotting to drag her immortal soul into Hell. It was only through Ludgate’s efforts that the girl had made enough progress to be considered merely high- rather than maximum-risk. She seemed to have been progressing so well – but, as with so many cases, periods of lucidity often served simply to obscure the true extent of psychosis.
Ludgate pressed a button on his desk and was answered by the bleat of an alarm that would instantly summon the two orderlies currently waiting outside his office door. Or, at least, that was what should have happened. Instead, the door remained closed. The doctor clenched his fist about the sword hilt, his face livid. Bad enough that The Rosewell Institute – a subsidiary of the Gartnavel Royal Mental Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland – had allowed such a breach of security as to allow a patient to gain possession of a weapon, but for the orderlies to desert their posts during an evaluation session…? That was simply intolerable!
Samantha leaned forward upon the desk, her previously timid countenance now twisted with anxious rage. “Give it to me!” she yelled. “Sacred Dragonfang is an artefact of the most primeval magic, and without it, everyone dies! The Ancient told me I had to be prepared for when the WitchQueen - ”
“Enough!” Ludgate roared, stabbing at the alarm button once more. This time, there was a response – the office door swung open. The doctor scowled, and opened his mouth ready to berate those white-coated employees he was expecting to enter…
…but his words died upon his lips and his eyes shot wide when he saw that the newcomers were something different entirely. There were at least six of them, but perhaps as many as twice that – it was difficult to tell with the way they shifted back and forth like wheat in the breeze. They were four feet tall, slight of body but long of limb, with leathery, hairless skin the colour of oak leaves beginning to turn from green to golden-brown with the encroach of autumn. They had wide grins full of needle teeth, and red-black eyes, and spade-like claws – and these claws were soaked with fresh blood.
Fiends, the girl had said. Yes. Yes, fiends was as apt a description as any.
“What the blazes?” Ludgate breathed. “It’s not possible. What… what…?”
Samantha glared at the quivering man, her eyes piercing through the curtain of her hair. “Goblins,” she stated, coldly. “Denizens of the Dracath Court of the Faerie Realms – and only I can stand against them. Now give me the sword!”
Slipping from his chair and slinking backwards into a corner, the doctor simply stared at the creatures that were slowly beginning to surround them, listening to their unholy hiss and cackle. He was a rational man to his core and refused to believe his own eyes; he would rather consider himself to be plagued by a sudden insanity of his own than to accept the reality of these things, things that should simply not exist. He clutched the sword hilt to his chest, as if it was the last remaining anchor to the logical world. Samantha’s eyes narrowed.
“So be it,” she muttered. And then, she balled her hands into fists and set about pummelling Ludgate so fiercely that he instinctively drew up his arms to protect himself. She then stamped down on his groin with the heel of one bare foot and the man instantly stiffened and exhaled a mewling sound somewhere between a grunt and a whistle, his face flushing a livid purple. In that moment he loosed his grip on his prize, allowing Samantha to snatch the hilt away. All around, the goblins – now certainly more than ten – began to squeal and spit, flexing their claws. Samantha turned to face them, her expression triumphant.
“Behold!” she cried. “Your inherent languor betrays you, fiends! You should have attacked when you had the chance – now, legendary Dragonfang shall spill your stinking blood!”
Clutching his crotch, Ludgate stared on aghast as Samantha held the ancient sword hilt aloft as if it were a fully-fashioned weapon. Despite the pain she’d caused him he felt a terrible grief engulf his heart. So young, so frail… an eighteen-year-old girl in regulation whites, her arms so thin and her skin so pale, surrendering to her delusions. He knew, in that instant, that he’d failed his patient; he knew that, whatever these creatures truly were, they would now devour her before his eyes. And there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
A split second later, the goblins surged forward as one…
…and the doctor could only turn away as poor Samantha vanished helplessly into their midst, screaming beneath the onslaught of their dreadful teeth and claws. He flinched as he felt blood splatter his face and the backs of his hands, and his eyes flickered open instinctively – then widened as he saw that he was being speckled not with sickening crimson but with a dark, oily green.
It was blood, certainly blood. But it didn’t belong to Samantha.
The goblins shrieked as they were scattered to all sides, limbs flailing – and at the heart of them rose a girl with platinum blonde hair and shining, cerulean blue eyes, familiar but subtly altered from the child she had once been. She remained frail, her body still shrouded in her smock, but now she stood straight with head held high, and she moved swiftly, with confidence and elegance. The girl twisted and arched her back, her right arm sweeping back and forth as if conducting an orchestra. The ornate hilt was clenched in her fist and Doctor Ludgate presumed it unchanged at first; however, then he glimpsed a flicker of silver edged with electric blue extending from the neck of the handle, a blade of some four feet in length that registered in his brain as impossible even as he strained to follow its movements with wide eyes. The blade was so thin as to be two-dimensional. It only seemed to exist for irregular half-seconds and only when viewed at a certain angle, but the carnage it wrought couldn’t be denied. Samantha danced and ducked and weaved and the otherworldly sword cleaved back and forth through the throng of leaf-skinned beasts with inexorable purpose.
An artefact of the most primeval magic. The tears streaming down Ludgate’s cheeks didn’t stem only from his mangled testicles – he was witnessing the destruction of the rational world he had always worshipped like a religion.
The goblins were somewhere between simian and insect, whooping and cackling as they scuttled back and forth, slashing out with their claws. Normal humans stood little chance against them – indeed, they’d slain close to forty workers and patients as they’d swarmed Rosewell, alternating between disembowelment and decapitation at their leisure. But the enemy they now faced was not human. Not any more. “Ferry this missive back to your WitchQueen!” snarled the warrior who had once been plain Samantha Parrington, shifting her powerful shoulders into a particularly vicious thrust that felled three goblins in a single strike. “Tell her The Valkyrie has answered the call of The Ancient – and that with Dragonfang at hand, this world is now and shall ever be defended!”
The goblins howled and surged forward, only to be met with a sweeping barrage of jabs and thrusts that severed limbs and slit throats in equal measure. Samantha – The Valkyrie – smiled grimly as she pirouetted in macabre dance, stabbing the nigh-invisible point of her blade through the mouth of one of her foes and out the back of its skull, then spinning to puncture another’s heart through its ribcage before the first had even fallen back into the throng of its fellows. A searching claw snatched at the girl’s waist and drew blood but was hacked off at the wrist; a flash of teeth glanced at her breast but was then dislocated with a crunching blow before the offending jaw was removed with one clean strike.
“It has been too long, witchspawn,” the Valkyrie hissed, her eyed bright with madness. “Too long since I revelled in the screams of your wretched demise! But the emissary of Valhalla and scourge of darklings is born again, as she shall ever be throughout eternity…”
Doctor Ludgate had lapsed into a veritable seizure of quivering sobs now, his mind lost as reality crumbled. Here was a helpless girl transformed into some supernatural swordswoman, blithely slashing her way through an army of foes that had invaded his office. The Valkyrie was now knee-deep in corpses, her smock drenched with stinking green blood that also patterned the walls. Ludgate could taste that same foulness on his skin and it made him retch. If the battle lasted much longer he would surely faint – but, even as he watched, the flow of goblins was stemming, from a river to a trickle and then abating completely. The Valkyrie dispatched the final few creatures with clinical precision, her eyes alive with an almost childlike delight as she removed heads as one might dislodge coconuts at a fairground shy. When the last beast died screaming, impaled on her winking blade, the swordswoman exhaled a hiss of triumph and turned towards the man cowering against the far wall of the room.
“A fine battle!” she exclaimed, her accent now as sharply defined as the rest of her. “But are you harmed, Doctor?”
Ludgate was unable to reply. He was also unable to move, swamped in dismembered remains. He merely issued some unintelligible noise, and continued to quiver uncontrollably. The Valkyrie regarded him through her blonde fringe with quiet contempt.
“And so, the saddest of resolutions,” she murmured. “You were a spiteful man at heart, Doctor: you sought to ease the maladies of your patients’ minds through bullying and bluster in the stead of compassion. But here you now cower, yourself reduced to gibbering madness, and who in turn shall help you? All who work here – inclusive of my fellow prisoners, for captives is all we were in truth – have surely perished by goblin claw. Thus, you are alone. Better, perhaps, that you too had died, no?”
The Valkyrie breathed deep then and her eyes narrowed, sparking with an unmistakable hatred. She raised her blade and stepped forward… only to halt, suddenly, at the murmur of a distant, unfamiliar voice. She whirled, tensed for battle – but, aside from the goblin corpses, she was alone. She stiffened, her skin prickling. The voice came again, more clearly, and now she recognised that it belonged to a man – and that it sounded inside her head.
Samantha, it said, hushed but insistent. Samantha Parrington.
Was… was that her name? The swordswoman faltered, her eyes flickering with pain.
“I am Valkyrie, emissary of Valhalla, the realm of fallen Gods,” she whispered. “I know not who - ”
Yeah, fuck, whatever. Just listen, okay? the disembodied voice commanded. These shit weasels you’ve just slaughtered were the advance sortie – the kamikaze wave, acceptable losses sent by their mistress so that she could gauge your prowess. Now there’ll be more, a legion so fucking huge you won’t stand a chance alone. But you don’t have to be alone, Samantha. None of us do.
The Valkyrie drew herself to her full height and flicked the point of her nigh-invisible blade through her hair. “And who are you, stranger in my head?”
My name’s Stefan. Doctor Stefan Strang. I’m a disciple of The Ancient, just like you. And there are others. Other Defenders. Separately we’re roadkill, but together…? Together we can kick these godless bitches’ motherfucking arses all the way back to whatever shade of Hell they sprouted from. Understand?
The Valkyrie smiled grimly. “A legion, you say? I think I shall enjoy such a war. Are you close, Doctor Strange?”
Strang. Doctor Strang.
“What?”
Oh, never mind. The voice sounded exasperated. I’m in London. Greenwich. Catch the next train from Glasgow Central and you can be here inside a day. I’ll guide you to the exact location when -
“This Greenwich… it will be our battlefield?”
It depends.
“On what?”
On whether The Ancient’s other two disciples survive our enemies’ intentions as we have.
“And if they haven’t?”
The voice in the swordswoman’s head paused momentarily. Well, it said, quietly, then I guess it won’t be so much a battlefield as a fucking graveyard…
The Valkyrie’s eyes narrowed. She stared back towards Doctor Ludgate, aware that he was regarding her with naked fear. “You must excuse me, Doctor,” she murmured, hefting her weapon. “It appears my aid is urgently required elsewhere. Therefore our parting must be swift. I hope you understand.”
The swordswoman turned away then, and Ludgate exhaled a sob of relief. A bare fragment of his mind still clung to sanity, but this was enough; he was already beginning to plan how he should proceed once his young patient had taken her leave. He needed to contact the emergency services – medical, to deal with any potential survivors of this massacre, and police, to both prevent any further harm as a result of Samantha’s psychosis and to root out the source of this abominable travesty. These goblins hadn’t been real, of course. He may have believed so initially, but the special effects industry had grown out of all proportion these past few years and there was obviously an earthly explanation to what he’d just witnessed. Yes, absolutely. He just needed to –
The Valkyrie whipped out her hand without looking and Ludgate saw a momentary glint of electric blue flash before his eyes. He coughed. Then spluttered. His throat stung. He glanced down as he raised his fingers to his neck, then frowned as he saw a gout of dark blood flowing down his chest, soaking the sleeves and collar of his shirt. He convulsed, and vomited more blood. His vision was already beginning to dull.
“Goodbye, Doctor,” Samantha Parrington whispered, still not turning her head. Samantha. Not The Valkyrie. “There are monsters abroad in this world, but not all of them are easily distinguished. As I told poor Mrs. Norriss… one can never be too careful.”
And with that she stalked from the corpse-strewn office, sword in hand, heading for a new destination – and a new destiny.
next issue: As the dread Dormammu watched over the newly-manifested Cabal, Varnae despatches his nosferatu in pursuit of The Ancient’s third recruit – but who wears the crucifix of power? Don’t miss “Absolution”!
author’s notes
Something I’ve always found tricky as an English fanfic writer is the fact that most heroes operate out of New York. I’ve been on holiday to the US, to New Hampshire and to California, but never NYC; therefore I can only visualise the cityscape with the help of films and maps and internet guides. I’ve managed to instil some authenticity into my depictions of New Orleans in my Brother Voodoo series, mainly because the culture and customs there seem – to an outsider – to be more stylised in the first place, but I’ve always struggled with New York.
It is therefore with great enthusiasm (and relief) that my re-imagined Defenders are setting up home in London, a city I do know very well indeed having once lived there for a number of years. And, as I state in the opening narrative of this issue, there’s something rather special about the borough of Greenwich, one of the few regions yet to be devoured by the rampant commercialism of Burger King, Starbucks, Baby Gap and all the other soulless bastards of a conglomerate world.
Of course, there’s a certain equilibrium at work here: the traditional Doctor Strange takes his tea and biscuits at his own Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village, New York. See? Symmetry. Can’t beat it. On this note, I’d like to point out that Samantha Parrington, The Valkyrie, isn’t the only important character to have been introduced this issue. There’s also that ‘truly ugly fucker of a house’ that will serve as sanctuary for our protagonists as the series unfolds. I’ve always believed that location is as essential to any story as the characters are, so I’m hoping that the Sanctum – and Greenwich – will be looked upon with fond curiosity by anyone reading this. The house isn’t exactly what it seems – hey, is anything? – but imagine something midway between Doctor Who’s TARDIS and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves and you’ll be on the right track.
Meanwhile, if you found the name of Doctor Anthony Ludgate rang a bell or two, keep your eyes peeled. There’s more to come in that vein. And before the tale is done a whole host of familiar names will have had their role to play…
If you’d like to give feedback on this series, positive or critical, please don’t hesitate to drop a line to [email protected]
For those interested, a list of my fanfiction can be found at http://meriadesfiction.livejournal.com
Thanks for reading!
- Meriades Rai
Founded in the 17th Century by King Charles II for the purposes of astronomy and the study and implementation of longitude, the Observatory was comprised of Flamsteed House – another architectural triumph of the genius Wren – plus the Meridian Buildings and the Great Equatorial Building, with its distinct, onion-shaped dome. The work conducted by the Royal Observatory had vacated this site after the end of the Second World War following extensive damage during The Blitz, but these wonderful edifices still served an essential purpose as a museum and for academic research. Nestled sleepily amidst the glorious greenery of the park, the Observatory attracted tens of thousands of tourists and students every year.
Doctor Stefan Strang had himself visited Greenwich on three occasions in the past decade. Not once had he noticed the crooked house squatting two hundred yards from the Observatory, even though it was positioned squarely in the middle of an open stretch of grass between two flanking avenues of oaks and yews, and was therefore hardly missable. Stefan stood now at the base of a flight of weathered stone steps that led up to a pair of double doors, oak hinged and framed with ornate wrought iron, and sheltered beneath an overhanging porch decorated with gargoyles. It was, to be blunt, a truly ugly fucker of a house. He arched a dark eyebrow.
“You know,” he murmured, “I can’t help but notice that, even though we’re standing out like a couple of arseholes at a dick convention, no-one seems to be paying us the slightest bit of attention…”
Stefan was dressed almost entirely in black – slacks, shirt, jacket and shoes, all tres chic and freshly purchased since arriving in London that morning – with only a pair of gold and silver gloves to add a splash of colour. With a black fedora hat worn at a rakish angle, accentuating his roguishly handsome countenance, he certainly didn’t blend in to his surroundings. The old man alongside him was even more conspicuous; snow-haired and vulpine, clad in a green cloak that did little to mask his emaciated frame, The Ancient leant heavily upon a gnarled old cane as he regarded his companion with obvious disdain.
“A perpetual enchantment,” he murmured, his voice parched and scratchy. “This Sanctum Sanctorum has remained hidden from the prying eyes of mankind since it was built over three hundred years ago.”
“Three hundred sounds about right. You realise there’s not a single fucking right angle to be seen? It looks like it’s ready to fall over pissed.”
The Ancient smiled thinly. “Trust me, Doctor, the Sanctum will outlast us all. Its foundations are rooted not just in the earth beneath our feet but also in the intricate network of magical essence that threads betwixt dimensions, forming a knot of immense power at this very location.”
“Uh-huh. And I only drink bourbon on weekends. Nice view, though, I’ll give you that.”
“Quite! I’ve always held firm to the belief that there’s no environment more splendid than an English park in - ”
“I was thinking more of those two blondes in the short skirts lying in the sun over there. I swear to you, the one on the left? No knickers whatsoever. Shameless.”
The Ancient’s brow furrowed. “Sometimes, Stefan, I wonder if the seriousness of our situation hasn’t passed you by…”
“Other-worldly supernatural menace threatening existence as we know it, with me somehow stuck in the middle of it? Don’t worry. I’m hardly likely to fucking forget, am I?”
Stefan sighed and stared up at the fascia of the crooked house, a peculiar amalgamation of different period styles – Edwardian, Georgian, Art Deco – that didn’t necessarily blend well. An enormous stained-glass window, circular and convex and ribbed with a curious, criss-cross pattern of lead trim, dominated the third and uppermost storey of the building. It reminded him, simultaneously, of an eye and the ventricles of a heart. He fancied he could almost see it pulsing.
“We should make ourselves at home,” The Ancient murmured, his eyes twin pools of inscrutable shadow as he observed his companion. “We must ready ourselves for what’s to come.”
“These other poor bastards you mentioned? My fellow ‘disciples’? I know you said they’d make their own way here, but if they’re in danger, the same way I was back in Stuttgart, then shouldn’t we - ”
“They will face personal challenges, as you did. But it’s important they overcome them alone, to prepare them, to allow them to access the powers manifested through the artefacts I have gifted them.”
“I wasn’t alone. You were there to help me.”
“To encourage you. And, in spirit, you shall be on hand to encourage your future allies in turn.”
“But you just said - ”
The Ancient raised a withered hand, his expression now stern. “Enough,” he breathed. “Our journey has left me tired and I require the pertinent remedy.”
“Some kind of mystic meditation, right?”
“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a nice cup of tea and a digestive biscuit.”
Stefan snorted. “Now who isn’t taking things seriously?”
“When in England, my friend, when in England…”
The Ancient chuckled to himself, then turned to climb the steps. Stefan Strang rolled his eyes beneath the brim of his hat. Primordial evil, localised magical essence, some old tart with a mental screw loose, and a sinister looking house that hundreds of people walked past every day without even noticing?
He scowled. It was enough to land someone in a fucking lunatic asylum…
MARVEL 2000 PRESENTS
"REHABILITATION"
Written by Meriades Rai
“Do you know why you’re here, Samantha?”
The eighteen-year-old girl cast the man sitting on the other side of the desk a strange look. Her eyes, a delicate cerulean blue, peered out suspiciously from behind a curtain fringe of platinum blonde hair, and her rosebud lower lip trembled. So frail and bird-like, she all but disappeared in the shapeless white smock she wore, and when she gathered her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms about her bare knees she appeared heartbreakingly vulnerable.
“I’m here because I killed a woman named Barbara Norriss,” the girl said, in a tiny voice touched with a lilt of Scandinavian accent. “I thought she was trying to hurt me, but… but she wasn’t. She was just the person who lived in the house at the end of my street. I know that now. I didn’t - ”
“No, no.” Doctor Anthony Ludgate waved a hand impatiently, and sighed. “I didn’t mean why are you here at the Institution – I meant, why are you here, in my office, today? Hmm?”
Samantha clenched and unclenched her fingers as her arms tightened about her knees. “I… don’t know?” she whispered. “I’ve been good, I swear! I’ve been taking my medication, and I haven’t hurt anyone for weeks now…”
“That’s right. And all the better we keep it that way, yes?” Ludgate leaned forward, his dark eyes narrowing sharply. He was a pompous prig but no less imposing for that, broad across the shoulders and heavy about the waist, with untidy hair that remained jet black even though receding and a brooding countenance. Yet it was more than mere size that allowed the doctor to loom over poor Samantha Parrington. A classic victim complex married with a nigh pathological fear of authority, she withered in his presence like a flower denied the sun.
“I’m told you had a visitor yesterday, Samantha,” Ludgate declared, his cadence a rich, Scottish brogue every bid as domineering as his patient’s inflection was delicate. “An elderly gentleman. A most curious incident, however, for while his presence is clearly documented in the official records, none of the staff appear to have taken note of his name. This is a severe breach of protocol, made all the more serious by the fact that this man seems to have presented you with a gift when no-one was paying attention. Fortunately, a spot security check this morning has brought the truth of the matter to light…”
Samantha flinched as the doctor opened a drawer on his side of the desk. He withdrew what lay inside and held it aloft, his expression accusatory. Samantha gasped.
“That’s mine!” she wailed, suddenly animated in her seat. “The Ancient gave it to me!”
She lunged forward then, but Ludgate reared backwards, protected by the desk. The object in his hands glittered in the overhead lights.
“Sit down, Samantha, else I’ll have no choice but to sedate you!” the doctor commanded. “Do you know what this is? Do you? It’s a weapon. A sword hilt – medieval by the look of it, although I’m no expert in such matters. No blade, thank God, otherwise there’s no telling what harm you would have done to yourself, or others for that matter. But, even so. Weighty enough that you could still have used it to perpetrate serious injury. Whoever that idiotic old man was, I’ll have him up on criminal charges as soon as - ”
“He’s The Ancient,” Samantha hissed, jumping up from her chair once more. “He’s the saviour – the saviour of the world! He gave me Dragonfang, the sword of the Valkyrie, for protection against the fiends that - ”
“Sit down!”
Doctor Ludgate slapped the desk with the palm of his hand, shaking his head in frustration. The delicate, innocent girl of before was now gone, replaced by a shrieking harpy – and it wasn’t the first time in their acquaintance that he’d witnessed such a transformation. Samantha Parrington suffered from a number of extreme, delusional mental illnesses, including paranoia and borderline schizophrenia. She had been declared insane at trial twelve months previously following a murderous attack on a neighbour whom Samantha had believed to be an agent of Satan plotting to drag her immortal soul into Hell. It was only through Ludgate’s efforts that the girl had made enough progress to be considered merely high- rather than maximum-risk. She seemed to have been progressing so well – but, as with so many cases, periods of lucidity often served simply to obscure the true extent of psychosis.
Ludgate pressed a button on his desk and was answered by the bleat of an alarm that would instantly summon the two orderlies currently waiting outside his office door. Or, at least, that was what should have happened. Instead, the door remained closed. The doctor clenched his fist about the sword hilt, his face livid. Bad enough that The Rosewell Institute – a subsidiary of the Gartnavel Royal Mental Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland – had allowed such a breach of security as to allow a patient to gain possession of a weapon, but for the orderlies to desert their posts during an evaluation session…? That was simply intolerable!
Samantha leaned forward upon the desk, her previously timid countenance now twisted with anxious rage. “Give it to me!” she yelled. “Sacred Dragonfang is an artefact of the most primeval magic, and without it, everyone dies! The Ancient told me I had to be prepared for when the WitchQueen - ”
“Enough!” Ludgate roared, stabbing at the alarm button once more. This time, there was a response – the office door swung open. The doctor scowled, and opened his mouth ready to berate those white-coated employees he was expecting to enter…
…but his words died upon his lips and his eyes shot wide when he saw that the newcomers were something different entirely. There were at least six of them, but perhaps as many as twice that – it was difficult to tell with the way they shifted back and forth like wheat in the breeze. They were four feet tall, slight of body but long of limb, with leathery, hairless skin the colour of oak leaves beginning to turn from green to golden-brown with the encroach of autumn. They had wide grins full of needle teeth, and red-black eyes, and spade-like claws – and these claws were soaked with fresh blood.
Fiends, the girl had said. Yes. Yes, fiends was as apt a description as any.
“What the blazes?” Ludgate breathed. “It’s not possible. What… what…?”
Samantha glared at the quivering man, her eyes piercing through the curtain of her hair. “Goblins,” she stated, coldly. “Denizens of the Dracath Court of the Faerie Realms – and only I can stand against them. Now give me the sword!”
Slipping from his chair and slinking backwards into a corner, the doctor simply stared at the creatures that were slowly beginning to surround them, listening to their unholy hiss and cackle. He was a rational man to his core and refused to believe his own eyes; he would rather consider himself to be plagued by a sudden insanity of his own than to accept the reality of these things, things that should simply not exist. He clutched the sword hilt to his chest, as if it was the last remaining anchor to the logical world. Samantha’s eyes narrowed.
“So be it,” she muttered. And then, she balled her hands into fists and set about pummelling Ludgate so fiercely that he instinctively drew up his arms to protect himself. She then stamped down on his groin with the heel of one bare foot and the man instantly stiffened and exhaled a mewling sound somewhere between a grunt and a whistle, his face flushing a livid purple. In that moment he loosed his grip on his prize, allowing Samantha to snatch the hilt away. All around, the goblins – now certainly more than ten – began to squeal and spit, flexing their claws. Samantha turned to face them, her expression triumphant.
“Behold!” she cried. “Your inherent languor betrays you, fiends! You should have attacked when you had the chance – now, legendary Dragonfang shall spill your stinking blood!”
Clutching his crotch, Ludgate stared on aghast as Samantha held the ancient sword hilt aloft as if it were a fully-fashioned weapon. Despite the pain she’d caused him he felt a terrible grief engulf his heart. So young, so frail… an eighteen-year-old girl in regulation whites, her arms so thin and her skin so pale, surrendering to her delusions. He knew, in that instant, that he’d failed his patient; he knew that, whatever these creatures truly were, they would now devour her before his eyes. And there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
A split second later, the goblins surged forward as one…
…and the doctor could only turn away as poor Samantha vanished helplessly into their midst, screaming beneath the onslaught of their dreadful teeth and claws. He flinched as he felt blood splatter his face and the backs of his hands, and his eyes flickered open instinctively – then widened as he saw that he was being speckled not with sickening crimson but with a dark, oily green.
It was blood, certainly blood. But it didn’t belong to Samantha.
The goblins shrieked as they were scattered to all sides, limbs flailing – and at the heart of them rose a girl with platinum blonde hair and shining, cerulean blue eyes, familiar but subtly altered from the child she had once been. She remained frail, her body still shrouded in her smock, but now she stood straight with head held high, and she moved swiftly, with confidence and elegance. The girl twisted and arched her back, her right arm sweeping back and forth as if conducting an orchestra. The ornate hilt was clenched in her fist and Doctor Ludgate presumed it unchanged at first; however, then he glimpsed a flicker of silver edged with electric blue extending from the neck of the handle, a blade of some four feet in length that registered in his brain as impossible even as he strained to follow its movements with wide eyes. The blade was so thin as to be two-dimensional. It only seemed to exist for irregular half-seconds and only when viewed at a certain angle, but the carnage it wrought couldn’t be denied. Samantha danced and ducked and weaved and the otherworldly sword cleaved back and forth through the throng of leaf-skinned beasts with inexorable purpose.
An artefact of the most primeval magic. The tears streaming down Ludgate’s cheeks didn’t stem only from his mangled testicles – he was witnessing the destruction of the rational world he had always worshipped like a religion.
The goblins were somewhere between simian and insect, whooping and cackling as they scuttled back and forth, slashing out with their claws. Normal humans stood little chance against them – indeed, they’d slain close to forty workers and patients as they’d swarmed Rosewell, alternating between disembowelment and decapitation at their leisure. But the enemy they now faced was not human. Not any more. “Ferry this missive back to your WitchQueen!” snarled the warrior who had once been plain Samantha Parrington, shifting her powerful shoulders into a particularly vicious thrust that felled three goblins in a single strike. “Tell her The Valkyrie has answered the call of The Ancient – and that with Dragonfang at hand, this world is now and shall ever be defended!”
The goblins howled and surged forward, only to be met with a sweeping barrage of jabs and thrusts that severed limbs and slit throats in equal measure. Samantha – The Valkyrie – smiled grimly as she pirouetted in macabre dance, stabbing the nigh-invisible point of her blade through the mouth of one of her foes and out the back of its skull, then spinning to puncture another’s heart through its ribcage before the first had even fallen back into the throng of its fellows. A searching claw snatched at the girl’s waist and drew blood but was hacked off at the wrist; a flash of teeth glanced at her breast but was then dislocated with a crunching blow before the offending jaw was removed with one clean strike.
“It has been too long, witchspawn,” the Valkyrie hissed, her eyed bright with madness. “Too long since I revelled in the screams of your wretched demise! But the emissary of Valhalla and scourge of darklings is born again, as she shall ever be throughout eternity…”
Doctor Ludgate had lapsed into a veritable seizure of quivering sobs now, his mind lost as reality crumbled. Here was a helpless girl transformed into some supernatural swordswoman, blithely slashing her way through an army of foes that had invaded his office. The Valkyrie was now knee-deep in corpses, her smock drenched with stinking green blood that also patterned the walls. Ludgate could taste that same foulness on his skin and it made him retch. If the battle lasted much longer he would surely faint – but, even as he watched, the flow of goblins was stemming, from a river to a trickle and then abating completely. The Valkyrie dispatched the final few creatures with clinical precision, her eyes alive with an almost childlike delight as she removed heads as one might dislodge coconuts at a fairground shy. When the last beast died screaming, impaled on her winking blade, the swordswoman exhaled a hiss of triumph and turned towards the man cowering against the far wall of the room.
“A fine battle!” she exclaimed, her accent now as sharply defined as the rest of her. “But are you harmed, Doctor?”
Ludgate was unable to reply. He was also unable to move, swamped in dismembered remains. He merely issued some unintelligible noise, and continued to quiver uncontrollably. The Valkyrie regarded him through her blonde fringe with quiet contempt.
“And so, the saddest of resolutions,” she murmured. “You were a spiteful man at heart, Doctor: you sought to ease the maladies of your patients’ minds through bullying and bluster in the stead of compassion. But here you now cower, yourself reduced to gibbering madness, and who in turn shall help you? All who work here – inclusive of my fellow prisoners, for captives is all we were in truth – have surely perished by goblin claw. Thus, you are alone. Better, perhaps, that you too had died, no?”
The Valkyrie breathed deep then and her eyes narrowed, sparking with an unmistakable hatred. She raised her blade and stepped forward… only to halt, suddenly, at the murmur of a distant, unfamiliar voice. She whirled, tensed for battle – but, aside from the goblin corpses, she was alone. She stiffened, her skin prickling. The voice came again, more clearly, and now she recognised that it belonged to a man – and that it sounded inside her head.
Samantha, it said, hushed but insistent. Samantha Parrington.
Was… was that her name? The swordswoman faltered, her eyes flickering with pain.
“I am Valkyrie, emissary of Valhalla, the realm of fallen Gods,” she whispered. “I know not who - ”
Yeah, fuck, whatever. Just listen, okay? the disembodied voice commanded. These shit weasels you’ve just slaughtered were the advance sortie – the kamikaze wave, acceptable losses sent by their mistress so that she could gauge your prowess. Now there’ll be more, a legion so fucking huge you won’t stand a chance alone. But you don’t have to be alone, Samantha. None of us do.
The Valkyrie drew herself to her full height and flicked the point of her nigh-invisible blade through her hair. “And who are you, stranger in my head?”
My name’s Stefan. Doctor Stefan Strang. I’m a disciple of The Ancient, just like you. And there are others. Other Defenders. Separately we’re roadkill, but together…? Together we can kick these godless bitches’ motherfucking arses all the way back to whatever shade of Hell they sprouted from. Understand?
The Valkyrie smiled grimly. “A legion, you say? I think I shall enjoy such a war. Are you close, Doctor Strange?”
Strang. Doctor Strang.
“What?”
Oh, never mind. The voice sounded exasperated. I’m in London. Greenwich. Catch the next train from Glasgow Central and you can be here inside a day. I’ll guide you to the exact location when -
“This Greenwich… it will be our battlefield?”
It depends.
“On what?”
On whether The Ancient’s other two disciples survive our enemies’ intentions as we have.
“And if they haven’t?”
The voice in the swordswoman’s head paused momentarily. Well, it said, quietly, then I guess it won’t be so much a battlefield as a fucking graveyard…
The Valkyrie’s eyes narrowed. She stared back towards Doctor Ludgate, aware that he was regarding her with naked fear. “You must excuse me, Doctor,” she murmured, hefting her weapon. “It appears my aid is urgently required elsewhere. Therefore our parting must be swift. I hope you understand.”
The swordswoman turned away then, and Ludgate exhaled a sob of relief. A bare fragment of his mind still clung to sanity, but this was enough; he was already beginning to plan how he should proceed once his young patient had taken her leave. He needed to contact the emergency services – medical, to deal with any potential survivors of this massacre, and police, to both prevent any further harm as a result of Samantha’s psychosis and to root out the source of this abominable travesty. These goblins hadn’t been real, of course. He may have believed so initially, but the special effects industry had grown out of all proportion these past few years and there was obviously an earthly explanation to what he’d just witnessed. Yes, absolutely. He just needed to –
The Valkyrie whipped out her hand without looking and Ludgate saw a momentary glint of electric blue flash before his eyes. He coughed. Then spluttered. His throat stung. He glanced down as he raised his fingers to his neck, then frowned as he saw a gout of dark blood flowing down his chest, soaking the sleeves and collar of his shirt. He convulsed, and vomited more blood. His vision was already beginning to dull.
“Goodbye, Doctor,” Samantha Parrington whispered, still not turning her head. Samantha. Not The Valkyrie. “There are monsters abroad in this world, but not all of them are easily distinguished. As I told poor Mrs. Norriss… one can never be too careful.”
And with that she stalked from the corpse-strewn office, sword in hand, heading for a new destination – and a new destiny.
next issue: As the dread Dormammu watched over the newly-manifested Cabal, Varnae despatches his nosferatu in pursuit of The Ancient’s third recruit – but who wears the crucifix of power? Don’t miss “Absolution”!
author’s notes
Something I’ve always found tricky as an English fanfic writer is the fact that most heroes operate out of New York. I’ve been on holiday to the US, to New Hampshire and to California, but never NYC; therefore I can only visualise the cityscape with the help of films and maps and internet guides. I’ve managed to instil some authenticity into my depictions of New Orleans in my Brother Voodoo series, mainly because the culture and customs there seem – to an outsider – to be more stylised in the first place, but I’ve always struggled with New York.
It is therefore with great enthusiasm (and relief) that my re-imagined Defenders are setting up home in London, a city I do know very well indeed having once lived there for a number of years. And, as I state in the opening narrative of this issue, there’s something rather special about the borough of Greenwich, one of the few regions yet to be devoured by the rampant commercialism of Burger King, Starbucks, Baby Gap and all the other soulless bastards of a conglomerate world.
Of course, there’s a certain equilibrium at work here: the traditional Doctor Strange takes his tea and biscuits at his own Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village, New York. See? Symmetry. Can’t beat it. On this note, I’d like to point out that Samantha Parrington, The Valkyrie, isn’t the only important character to have been introduced this issue. There’s also that ‘truly ugly fucker of a house’ that will serve as sanctuary for our protagonists as the series unfolds. I’ve always believed that location is as essential to any story as the characters are, so I’m hoping that the Sanctum – and Greenwich – will be looked upon with fond curiosity by anyone reading this. The house isn’t exactly what it seems – hey, is anything? – but imagine something midway between Doctor Who’s TARDIS and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves and you’ll be on the right track.
Meanwhile, if you found the name of Doctor Anthony Ludgate rang a bell or two, keep your eyes peeled. There’s more to come in that vein. And before the tale is done a whole host of familiar names will have had their role to play…
If you’d like to give feedback on this series, positive or critical, please don’t hesitate to drop a line to [email protected]
For those interested, a list of my fanfiction can be found at http://meriadesfiction.livejournal.com
Thanks for reading!
- Meriades Rai