Back to GatefoldIssue #5 by Meriades Rai
March 2008 |
Stefan Strang stood before the full-length mirror in his room, subjecting himself to silent scrutiny. He was wearing black leggings and boots but was otherwise unclothed, revealing a lithe but well-developed upper torso, particularly about the shoulders and pectorals. He’d always kept himself fit, never a fanatic but certainly a regular at the gym, two or three times a week. Weights, push-ups, rowing machine. He’d been careful of his hands, however. No self-respecting surgeon could countenance damaging those, even just by developing calluses. Take away a doctor’s skilful touch and, well… what use would he be?
Stefan stared along the length of each arm in turn. Regarded each wrist calmly, quietly. The stump of each wrist, wrapped in clean, cream-coloured bandages. He looked back up at his reflection: a handsome man, olive-skinned with ruffled black hair and dark eyes, darker still now that he held his head at such an angle that they were cast in shadow. When he smiled it could be engaging. But, sometimes, there just wasn’t anything to smile about. No, not at all.
He pressed his truncated forearms to his abdomen, tracing the hard lines of his muscles beneath the flesh. “Look, ma,” he breathed. “No hands…”
Alongside the mirror there was a dressing table and a chest of drawers. Antiques. There was also a wardrobe in the room, and two high-backed chairs, and a grand four-poster bed with a scarlet canopy. All very civil and splendid. Deceptively so, Stefan mused sourly, considering this room was just one of many in a residence that was anything but civil. Underfoot the floorboards suddenly creaked and rippled - yes, there was no other word for it but rippled - as if in response to Stefan’s unspoken thought. From somewhere there came a scratching, the fiddling claws of rats in the walls, and from elsewhere there came an answering thrum, like the muffled throb of a water pump. Or a heart.
“Oh, just fuck off,” Stefan muttered. All around, the house - the Sanctum Sanctorum, as it had been christened - swelled with a satisfied smile, like a fat, black Cheshire Cat.
The gloves were lying on the dressing table. Silk, predominantly gold but with a lacing of embroidered silver. The cuffs were flared for convenience. Stefan glared at them, his eyes full of hate. Somehow he’d managed to struggle into his leggings and boots, but there was no way he could tackle the required fastenings and lacing without fingers and thumbs, any more than he could manoeuvre his way into his jade satin shirt and black velvet jacket. He needed the gloves.
He bowed his heed, cursing beneath his breath. Then he carefully placed his left stump into the first cuff, and the right into the second. He grimaced, even though he never felt any pain - any sensation at all - at what customarily followed this act: the instant and inexplicable materialization of new hands inside the gloves. Thumbs, fingers, knuckles, palms. Bones and flesh. Just there, tantalizing, beneath the silk. But whenever he peeled away that gold and silver second skin once more, nothing remained past those mocking stumps. It was impossible, of course. But then, where magic was concerned, so many things were.
Stefan turned back to his bed where the rest of his clothes lay.
And it was at that moment that he heard a distant scream, followed by the distinct crunch of splintering wood - and the floor shook beneath his feet once more, this time caused not by some uncanny, alien respiration but by a far more physical disturbance…
MARVEL 2000 PRESENTS
"INFRACTION"
Written by Meriades Rai
“Close the door! Close the fucking door!”
“What do you think I’m trying to do? It - ”
The man’s voice crumpled into a grunting exhalation as a blow to his midriff smacked the breath from his lungs and sent him flying backwards into a wall. He was a tall, heavy-set black man dressed in belted black leathers: his impact left quite a dent in the oak panelling. Alongside him, the woman who had been yelling instructions cursed. She too was tall, slender yet curvaceous, with a pale moon face accentuated by cherrywood-red hair cut into a chic bob. She wore a scanty nightgown of deep blue Chantilly lace, her arms and long legs bare. When she strode forward on unshod feet, tiny shards of wood decorated her skin like porcupine quills; many drew blood, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes, smoky green gems, were narrowed in illustration of her current mood: determined, a little fearful, but above all thoroughly pissed off.
“Was it really too much to ask?” she snapped. “A good sleep, a hot bath, a patisserie selection for breakfast? Not to be rudely awoken and to stagger out of bed to find this!”
The woman’s given name was Patsy Walker, although since becoming resident at the Sanctum she had requested the moniker of Hellcat. Considering how she purred when she breathed, and how twin trails of greenish smoke were curling from the corners of her mouth, the name was entirely apt. The man in the black leathers who was now struggling to his feet at her flank was Eric Brooks, or - his preference - Blade. His head was shaved, his shoulders wide and flat, as if pounded upon an anvil. A crust of scar ran south from his right eye to the corner of his mouth. He was, in truth, a deeply spiritual man, as evidenced by the crucifix on a silver chain about his neck, but as far as appearances went he didn’t look exactly… affable. He was, however, a portrait of unadulterated charm compared to the repulsive, unmentionable thing that had seen fit to invade their residence that morning…
“What,” intoned an alarmed voice, “in the name of hairy fuck,” it continued, “is that?”
Stefan Strang, now fully dressed, was frozen in the act of descending a narrow spiral staircase that was fashioned from oak intertwined with what appeared to be bone. The staircase was located midway along the north edge of the long dining hall where the present melee was occurring. The hall was dominated by a wide table bordered with chairs, and was flanked by panelled walls that seemed to be positioned at such irregular, unsymmetrical angles that the overall effect was quite disorienting. At the other end of the hall there was a door, and beyond the door there was an expanse of utter, utter darkness: the blackest darkness imaginable, and one which appeared difficult to contain, considering how it was pulsing and licking at the edges of the frame.
And, at the heart of the darkness, stretching out into the hall from that place beyond, was it. The thing.
Green, rubbery flesh, at once reptilian and gangrenous, that bristled and twitched like sausages sizzling in a pan of filthy grease. Black blisters. A knot of tentacles of all manner of length and thickness, some as fat and succulent as rump steak, some as thin and wiry as spiders’ legs. Always slithering, always squeezing, in something not unlike lust. And at the end of every tentacle there was a cluster of eyes, each bloom of quite uncanny regularity: always one central orb, greenish-white with a black slit of a pupil, surrounded by twelve smaller circlets, each identical to its parent save for the singular addition that their slits were filled with a lacing of tiny, needle teeth. Through these eye-mouths there came an undulating, whistling moan that sounded unsettlingly like lonely weeping.
The tentacles were seeping rapidly into the hall like weeds, moving over the floor with a hiss of wet kisses. Stefan stared in disbelief, then glanced across at Hellcat and Blade.
“Okay, so… has anyone considered closing that door?”
Hellcat scowled. “Oh, listen to lightning lord here. Are you always this prescient, Doctor?”
“We’ve been trying,” Blade muttered. “Every time one of us gets close the creature knocks us down like skittles. It - ”
Suddenly a tentacle whipped up as if eager to provide a demonstration, its central eye burning with hunger whilst the twelve children in its cluster screamed. Hellcat ducked its initial thrust, then twisted at the hips and executed a sideways roll up onto the table, the skirt of her gown riding high about her thighs. Stefan tried not to peep. Not very determinedly, it must be said, but he tried. The tentacle was rather more lascivious, however; it followed keenly, twelve mouths snapping, onto to be repulsed at the last second by a burst of green flame. This fire was exhaled from Hellcat’s own mouth and it certainly proved effective. The tendril was engulfed and recoiled instantly, its scorched flesh leaking a sulphuric stink and a trail not of blood but of black dust and ash. Unfortunately this instinctive retreat was not fully-fledged withdrawal. The tentacle continued to hover upon the threshold, where it was gathered close almost lovingly by its fellows, and another feeler slithered forward to take its place.
Hellcat remained crouched upon the table, smoothing her gown demurely. She cocked her head upon her shoulder and fixed her eyes upon Stefan. “Any other brilliant suggestions, Strange?” she purred, licking her lips.
“Don’t call me that. Where the fuck’s the old man?”
“Regrettably,” Hellcat sighed, “he was the first to be struck down. And, last I saw, he was being attended by the fourth member of our little enclave…”
# # # # # # # # # #
The old man - or, more respectfully, The Ancient, as he preferred to be addressed - moaned as gentle hands lay him back upon a Persian rug decorated with intricate whorls of a hundred different shades of red, gold and violet. The Ancient himself was dressed in robes of olive green that were usually immaculate but which were presently shredded in numerous places, most frequently about the arms. The skin beneath was lacerated with tiny bites, many of which had drawn blood. There was also blood in his snow-white hair. Alongside him, round blue eyes peeped out from beneath a fringe of platinum blonde as the girl in attendance - Samantha Parrington, also known as Valkyrie - looked on in concern.
“So strong now,” The Ancient whispered, his eyelids flickering in perpetual blink. “So big. So hungry. Have I truly been away so long…?”
Samantha stood back from the rug, wringing her hands. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to do! She was just eighteen years old, so frail, so unsure. No experience of the world save for the misery that her mental illness and subsequent institutionalisation had brought her. All this - The Ancient and his mysteries, this hideous Sanctum Sanctorum with its shifting walls and floors, these strangers she found herself aligned with against some extra-dimensional evil - she understood none of it. She wanted none of it. And yet, just as The Ancient had told her, she knew this was her destiny.
She could be strong. She had it within her. But this morning, just a few minutes earlier, she had been an observer as The Ancient had performed some arcane rite before a previously innocuous door in the dining hall, only for it to suddenly slam outwards upon its hinges and to reveal not another room but instead a well of such darkness, a void, as if a threshold had been opened upon the outer reaches of some distant galaxy… and then, with barely a heartbeat’s hesitation, the beast had appeared, swarming and slithering and sucking, all eyes and teeth and shapeless limbs. Attacking the old man, grasping him and biting him and almost dragging him away into the black only for Samantha to haul him free at the last moment and ferry him here. How could one be strong when faced with that?
“The sword,” The Ancient murmured, his eyes suddenly snapping wide and retaining a sense of lucidity. “Dragonfang. Align the blade with the other artefacts of power - all four, forever linked…”
Samantha’s hand went to the sheath belted at her slight waist. She was wearing blue jeans and a plain ivory blouse, but also a soft cloak of midnight blue velvet fastened about her throat with a pearl clasp. This cloak and the black leather sheath were a contrast to her otherwise ordinary clothes, a juxtaposition of the commonplace and the fantastic, but it was the sword in its scabbard that was truly otherworldly. Dragonfang. Samantha clasped the hilt and slid it free, and at first glance there was no extension of a blade to be seen; however, with the barest flex of the wrist so the cutting edge appeared, an impossibly thin sliver of silver and electric blue. And as the nervous girl drew her weapon so a palpable transformation came upon her, her frailty vanishing as she straightened her shoulders and back, set her jaw, and looked on with blue eyes now bright and eager for the battle. In that moment she was Samantha no more.
“Do not seek to kill,” The Ancient whispered. “The creature serves a purpose of which you cannot conceive. But, for our purposes, it must be tamed. Commanded. Named.”
The magical blade flashed, and a pair of rose red lips curled in an enigmatic smile.
“Instruct me,” Valkyrie said, eagerly. “And we, the master’s disciples, shall endeavour to succeed…”
# # # # # # # # # #
Doctor Strang - or rather Doctor Strange as, infuriatingly, the others were insistent on calling him, presumably because they considered it droll - raised his hands before his face so that he could read the silver runes embroidered into the palms of the golden silk. These runes moved constantly, drifting and swirling in lazy spirals, splintering and reforming into new shapes. Another example of the impossibility of magic. The runes spoke to Strange in ways he couldn’t comprehend, prompting words of some ancient language to form and spill from his lips in a mystic invocation.
In honesty, it was all bollocks: he couldn’t understand a single fucking syllable of it. However, on the few occasions he had used the runes the resulting enchantments had proved remarkably effective. Unfortunately, he was about to discover that his newly developed magical expertise wasn’t always so reliable.
As Hellcat and Blade pressed forward against the tentacles from the void so Strange attacked from a safer vantage, muttering his incantation and then looking on in wonderment as trails of ruby energy suddenly began to spool from his fingertips. The energy was akin to something between light and smoke, spreading over a wide area with some haste without dissipating and then beginning to form into a surfeit of spinning rings. Then, as the tendrils lashed back and forth, these rings began to encircle them and draw tight…
Hellcat saw the influx of the crimson circlets and glowered. “What are they?” she snapped. “Hula hoops? Can’t you magic up something more useful?”
Strange glanced across at her. “Like what?”
“I don’t know! Something… big. Like a bolt of lightning, or a gigantic hammer - ”
“A hammer? What, I’m Wile E. fucking Coyote, now? How about I spark up a massive fuck-off anvil over its head while I’m at it, eh? Jesus…”
“I was just suggesting,” Hellcat snapped. She turned her attention back to the fiend from the void, decidedly cross, but when she witnessed how effective the ruby rings actually seemed to be proving she exhaled a private sigh of relief. She was a skilled fighter; her lithe body swayed in a mesmeric dance as she weaved between the invading tentacles, and as she moved she delivered a series of vicious, slashing blows with hands that were spread rather then clenched into fists, allowing her fingers - tapered into sharp claws - to wreak their havoc. The occasional cloud of green flame from puckered lips was also an option. However, her methods were proving less effective against this extraterrestrial foe than they might against a more humanoid adversary. Blade, in comparison, was faring rather well. His combat style was more that of a bruiser than an athlete, and he employed his upper body strength to generate significant power in every flurry of punches he unleashed. Even more valuable, his fists weren’t simply pulverising the tendrils as they attempted to assault him, they were shredding them into ribbons of oil and rubber, and ash for blood: even more then Hellcat his hands were quite literally deadly weapons, blades in themselves, possessed of a preternaturally razor-sharp edge.
Blade also seemed to be enjoying the fact that he could really let loose against this adversary, Hellcat noticed. In the short time of their acquaintance - and, really, she knew hardly anything about any of her companions at all, least of all this grim, reticent fellow - she had come to suspect that his spiritual disposition, so at odds with the role he had been forced into, would perhaps prove to be a disadvantage. They were all of them going to be called upon to sacrifice a measure of their humanity in the difficult times ahead, she suspected. For her that would be a paltry forfeit. But for Blade…? Not all of their enemies would be sculpted from such excessive foreign matter as this fiend. Would he be so willing to use his deadly fists against those who masked themselves in more human guise?
Strange barked in triumph as the crimson bands he had conjured continued to set about the monstrous tentacles, tightening and knotting and restricting the beast’s advances. “Gigantic fucking hammer, my arse,” he muttered under his breath. “Woman thinks I’m a fucking Loony Toon. Swear to God, if… if…”
He faltered. He looked on, aghast. “Oh, fucking fuck it,” he said.
Strange’s jubilation was crumbling precisely because the sorcerous rings had began to do that exact same thing: they were fracturing and then disintegrating as the tentacled abomination doubled its efforts to break free and then surged forward through the darkness of the void, a hundred thousand eye-mouths screeching in rage. The threshold trembled. Hellcat and Blade both faltered quickly beneath this renewed attack, as first one and then the other was plucked from their feet and slammed down against the dining table pressed to their backs. Oak splinters filled the air. Strange cursed, gloved hands trembling as he looked in desperation to the runes. The same invocation was swimming before his eyes. But if it had failed once, what hope was there for a second attempt?
“Shuma-Gorath!”
Strange heard this declaration, and recognised the female voice that had uttered it, distinct as it was with its Scandinavian cadence. He then heard the chorus of rage from the beast transform instantly into screams of anguish. Pain… and fear?
“Shuma-Gorath!” Valkyrie bellowed once more, as she descended the spiral staircase at the head of the room and then vaulted up onto the dining table. She strode forward, the heels of her black calf-boots drumming out a heartbeat on the oak, her midnight cloak sweeping majestically behind her. Her blonde hair, almost white, lit bright like a halo. The nigh-invisible blade of her sword winked in and out of existence as she raised the weapon aloft. “Shuma-Gorath, I name thee. Shuma-Gorath, I command thee. Retreat now. Retreat!”
A number of the ravaging tentacles did as bidden, but a dozen or more remained, slithering and hungering in the doorway. Valkyrie’s blue eyes narrowed. She pursed her lips. And then, with a beguiling sweetness, she smiled. “Good,” she breathed. “I was hoping you’d need some persuading…”
Valkyrie skipped forward along the length of the table and then leapt, already swinging Dragonfang with abandon - so casually, in fact, that she almost caught Blade with a glancing slice as he rose beside her. He flinched back with a half-inch to spare, jaw slack as he realised how close he had come to receiving a second scar. “What, it’s not enough that I’ve got eyeballs on stalks trying to kill me?” he cried.
There was no apology from Valkyrie. She simply waded into the battle with the beast, Shuma-Gorath, guiding her blade with speed and precision as she hacked and thrust at the petulant tentacles that refused to withdraw. Dragonfang’s shimmering edge cleaved through rubbery flesh with ease, misting the air with black dust and the remnants of punctured eye-mouths. The fiend screamed, louder now than at any time before.
Buoyed, Blade and Hellcat also pressed forward once more; and, although each of them was now labouring after the pounding they’d received, they were both clearly in the mood for vengeance. More tendrils were shredded by stabbing hands and claws, or engulfed in belches of green flame, causing them to die or recoil. Valkyrie bellowed in some foreign tongue, her words unknown but their meaning evidently an exclamation of victory. Yet there was a measure of overconfidence here, Doctor Strange saw, mirroring his own premature joy of minutes before. For deep in the void the mass of writhing tentacles and eyes that was the entity known as Shuma-Gorath, though weakened, was not yet defeated. Strange’s eyes narrowed.
“Okay,” he breathed. “Second time’s a charm, as they say…”
He began to recite the enchantment formed by the runes upon his palms once more, and again a chain of ruby rings began to spool from his fingertips. Again the crimson bands flooded the immediate area - and beyond, past the threshold of the open door and out into the darkness of the void - and again they sought to ensnare the limbs of Shuma-Gorath. On this occasion, however, the magic was to prove stronger than the physical might of the beast. Tentacles strained against the ruby rings but were unable to shatter them as before. Shuma-Gorath thrashed and screeched in anger that soon bled into panic, but there was no escape. It could only watch on through thousands of flickering pupil slits as its four conquerors amassed at the threshold, shoulder to shoulder. Four Defenders.
“We’re glowing,” Hellcat murmured.
“Actually,” said Strange, “I’d say we were fucking awesome.”
Hellcat regarded him as one might an imbecilic child. “No,” she replied, slowly, “I mean we’re glowing. Look…”
She raised one hand. The emerald ring upon one delicate finger - her gift from The Ancient - was indeed shining star-bright with an inner light. Beside her, Blade’s crucifix was similarly aglow, as was Valkyrie’s sword. Doctor Strange’s gloved hands completed the shimmering circle.
“All four, forever linked,” Valkyrie said. “Those were The Ancient’s words. And I can feel it. Can’t you? We’re stronger together.”
“It’s true,” a parchment-thin voice sighed. The four of them turned to see the old man behind them, at the foot of the spiral staircase. Valkyrie made a move towards him, her expression concerned, but The Ancient merely smiled and waved her away.
“I’ll be fine in good time,” he told them. “I didn’t survive to be this old without knowing a few tricks about healing.” Strange arched an eyebrow.
“And how old are you?”
“The specifics aren’t important. But this being you have just snared between you is more archaic still…”
The Ancient advanced slowly, aided by a gnarled walking cane. Expression inscrutable, he gazed out past the threshold into the dark space beyond where the tentacled beast remained tethered. “Shuma-Gorath,” he breathed. “The Guardian of the Void. I must say, you all did remarkably well to survive its attentions.”
“So… what?” Hellcat snapped. “This was some kind of test?”
“In a sense, perhaps. But it was also an essential task to undertake should we harbour any illusions that we can ultimately protect this world from The Cabal. The Void, you see, is a linkspace, an emptiness between realms: this Earthly plane, the Hellbound Islands, the dominion of dreams, the Eternal Dread… and so many others. Dormammu and his kindred can transgress the barriers by accessing the collective human consciousness, and thus the first battle will be fought here. However, the war will be won in these other places, the realms of The Cabal. And now we have tamed the Guardian we can traverse the Void with freedom. We can visit the farthest corners of this planet in a matter of moments, treading the dimensional pathways - and we can ride the breach into the fortresses of our enemies.”
Doctor Strange exchanged glances with his companions. “Right,” he said, stiffly. “And you couldn’t have told us all this before you opened the fucking door? Or at least waited until we were all out of bed?”
The Ancient’s eyes clouded. “I… underestimated Shuma-Gorath’s power. The length of time I’ve been away, perhaps - or The Cabal’s infraction of the linkspace vortex has allowed the Guardian to feed more readily upon outside energies, augmenting its potency. I - ”
“You screwed up.”
It was Blade’s voice. The others looked at him, surprised. So far in his residence here at the Sanctum Sanctorum he had been decidedly reverential towards their elderly host, but now his eyes were as dark and cold as the Void beyond the doorway. “You gather us here, give us these ‘artefacts of power’, and then proceed to risk our lives. I’d at least like to assume that you know what you’re doing.” Blade leaned in close, every aspect of him suddenly as menacing as his scarred face suggested. “Forgive us, then, if we’re not exactly brimming with confidence right now…”
He turned then and stalked away. Lips pursed, Hellcat did the same, brushing black dust casually from her dishevelled gown and stained legs as she passed. Valkyrie followed on, but only after sheathing Dragonfang and laying a consoling hand upon The Ancient’s shoulder.
Doctor Strange remained, standing beside the old man as they both gazed out into the darkness. Abruptly, after the melee that had gone before, there was now an oppressive silence. Strange regarded the ruby rings that were binding Shuma-Gorath, reducing this previously great and terrible horror to such impotence, then glanced down thoughtfully at his hands. He looked at The Ancient, a faint smile at his lips.
“I did that,” he said, wriggling his gloved fingers. “Back in the hospital in Stuttgart where we first met, you told me that the magic would speak through me. That I was the strongest. I think you were right.”
The Ancient observed his disciple calmly, not in flicker in his eyes. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, you are. But, as the lovely Miss Walker postulated, this morning’s events may well prove to have been a test of sorts. An example. Of what perils might result from overconfidence, and conceit…”
“Uh-huh.”
Strange nodded, but his eyes had drifted back towards Shuma-Gorath. Their prisoner. His prisoner. He wriggled his fingers again, watching the dance of silver runes upon his palms, and his smile became a grin. In contrast, The Ancient was watching on with a certain measure of disquiet. He reminded himself that no disciple had ever entered into his charge fully formed, and that among these present four there was likely far more to alarm him where at least one other - Hellcat - was concerned. Stefan Strang was raw, arrogant. An individual’s first real exposure to power was always a difficult period. He would, surely, come to understand his responsibility. And yet…
Doctor Strange clapped his mentor on the shoulder and cast him a wink. “Don’t worry,” he said, charmingly. “I am paying attention. Honest. Trust me - I’m not the kind of guy who’ll let one achievement go to his head. Now, how about we go rustle up some bacon and eggs for breakfast? I’m fucking starving…”
next issue: Stefan confides in his new companions his concerns over Clea Balsamo, the married woman he was seeing before his accident… and Karloff Mordo begins to assemble his Order of the Damned. How will these two paths intersect?
author’s notes
Apologies to all who were expecting the return of Mordo this issue, as claimed by the Next Issue teaser last time out. Sitting down to write it occurred to me that, sometimes, best laid plans must be set aside to accommodate the timeless awesomeness that is Shuma-Gorath. Eyes on tentacles? You just can’t beat it.
I have a few classic Defenders characters, both friend and foe, in mind for future stories. If YOU, dear reader, have a favourite then feel free to drop me a line and let me know. I can’t promise I’ll include everyone, but I’m always in the market for ideas…
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
Stefan stared along the length of each arm in turn. Regarded each wrist calmly, quietly. The stump of each wrist, wrapped in clean, cream-coloured bandages. He looked back up at his reflection: a handsome man, olive-skinned with ruffled black hair and dark eyes, darker still now that he held his head at such an angle that they were cast in shadow. When he smiled it could be engaging. But, sometimes, there just wasn’t anything to smile about. No, not at all.
He pressed his truncated forearms to his abdomen, tracing the hard lines of his muscles beneath the flesh. “Look, ma,” he breathed. “No hands…”
Alongside the mirror there was a dressing table and a chest of drawers. Antiques. There was also a wardrobe in the room, and two high-backed chairs, and a grand four-poster bed with a scarlet canopy. All very civil and splendid. Deceptively so, Stefan mused sourly, considering this room was just one of many in a residence that was anything but civil. Underfoot the floorboards suddenly creaked and rippled - yes, there was no other word for it but rippled - as if in response to Stefan’s unspoken thought. From somewhere there came a scratching, the fiddling claws of rats in the walls, and from elsewhere there came an answering thrum, like the muffled throb of a water pump. Or a heart.
“Oh, just fuck off,” Stefan muttered. All around, the house - the Sanctum Sanctorum, as it had been christened - swelled with a satisfied smile, like a fat, black Cheshire Cat.
The gloves were lying on the dressing table. Silk, predominantly gold but with a lacing of embroidered silver. The cuffs were flared for convenience. Stefan glared at them, his eyes full of hate. Somehow he’d managed to struggle into his leggings and boots, but there was no way he could tackle the required fastenings and lacing without fingers and thumbs, any more than he could manoeuvre his way into his jade satin shirt and black velvet jacket. He needed the gloves.
He bowed his heed, cursing beneath his breath. Then he carefully placed his left stump into the first cuff, and the right into the second. He grimaced, even though he never felt any pain - any sensation at all - at what customarily followed this act: the instant and inexplicable materialization of new hands inside the gloves. Thumbs, fingers, knuckles, palms. Bones and flesh. Just there, tantalizing, beneath the silk. But whenever he peeled away that gold and silver second skin once more, nothing remained past those mocking stumps. It was impossible, of course. But then, where magic was concerned, so many things were.
Stefan turned back to his bed where the rest of his clothes lay.
And it was at that moment that he heard a distant scream, followed by the distinct crunch of splintering wood - and the floor shook beneath his feet once more, this time caused not by some uncanny, alien respiration but by a far more physical disturbance…
MARVEL 2000 PRESENTS
"INFRACTION"
Written by Meriades Rai
“Close the door! Close the fucking door!”
“What do you think I’m trying to do? It - ”
The man’s voice crumpled into a grunting exhalation as a blow to his midriff smacked the breath from his lungs and sent him flying backwards into a wall. He was a tall, heavy-set black man dressed in belted black leathers: his impact left quite a dent in the oak panelling. Alongside him, the woman who had been yelling instructions cursed. She too was tall, slender yet curvaceous, with a pale moon face accentuated by cherrywood-red hair cut into a chic bob. She wore a scanty nightgown of deep blue Chantilly lace, her arms and long legs bare. When she strode forward on unshod feet, tiny shards of wood decorated her skin like porcupine quills; many drew blood, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes, smoky green gems, were narrowed in illustration of her current mood: determined, a little fearful, but above all thoroughly pissed off.
“Was it really too much to ask?” she snapped. “A good sleep, a hot bath, a patisserie selection for breakfast? Not to be rudely awoken and to stagger out of bed to find this!”
The woman’s given name was Patsy Walker, although since becoming resident at the Sanctum she had requested the moniker of Hellcat. Considering how she purred when she breathed, and how twin trails of greenish smoke were curling from the corners of her mouth, the name was entirely apt. The man in the black leathers who was now struggling to his feet at her flank was Eric Brooks, or - his preference - Blade. His head was shaved, his shoulders wide and flat, as if pounded upon an anvil. A crust of scar ran south from his right eye to the corner of his mouth. He was, in truth, a deeply spiritual man, as evidenced by the crucifix on a silver chain about his neck, but as far as appearances went he didn’t look exactly… affable. He was, however, a portrait of unadulterated charm compared to the repulsive, unmentionable thing that had seen fit to invade their residence that morning…
“What,” intoned an alarmed voice, “in the name of hairy fuck,” it continued, “is that?”
Stefan Strang, now fully dressed, was frozen in the act of descending a narrow spiral staircase that was fashioned from oak intertwined with what appeared to be bone. The staircase was located midway along the north edge of the long dining hall where the present melee was occurring. The hall was dominated by a wide table bordered with chairs, and was flanked by panelled walls that seemed to be positioned at such irregular, unsymmetrical angles that the overall effect was quite disorienting. At the other end of the hall there was a door, and beyond the door there was an expanse of utter, utter darkness: the blackest darkness imaginable, and one which appeared difficult to contain, considering how it was pulsing and licking at the edges of the frame.
And, at the heart of the darkness, stretching out into the hall from that place beyond, was it. The thing.
Green, rubbery flesh, at once reptilian and gangrenous, that bristled and twitched like sausages sizzling in a pan of filthy grease. Black blisters. A knot of tentacles of all manner of length and thickness, some as fat and succulent as rump steak, some as thin and wiry as spiders’ legs. Always slithering, always squeezing, in something not unlike lust. And at the end of every tentacle there was a cluster of eyes, each bloom of quite uncanny regularity: always one central orb, greenish-white with a black slit of a pupil, surrounded by twelve smaller circlets, each identical to its parent save for the singular addition that their slits were filled with a lacing of tiny, needle teeth. Through these eye-mouths there came an undulating, whistling moan that sounded unsettlingly like lonely weeping.
The tentacles were seeping rapidly into the hall like weeds, moving over the floor with a hiss of wet kisses. Stefan stared in disbelief, then glanced across at Hellcat and Blade.
“Okay, so… has anyone considered closing that door?”
Hellcat scowled. “Oh, listen to lightning lord here. Are you always this prescient, Doctor?”
“We’ve been trying,” Blade muttered. “Every time one of us gets close the creature knocks us down like skittles. It - ”
Suddenly a tentacle whipped up as if eager to provide a demonstration, its central eye burning with hunger whilst the twelve children in its cluster screamed. Hellcat ducked its initial thrust, then twisted at the hips and executed a sideways roll up onto the table, the skirt of her gown riding high about her thighs. Stefan tried not to peep. Not very determinedly, it must be said, but he tried. The tentacle was rather more lascivious, however; it followed keenly, twelve mouths snapping, onto to be repulsed at the last second by a burst of green flame. This fire was exhaled from Hellcat’s own mouth and it certainly proved effective. The tendril was engulfed and recoiled instantly, its scorched flesh leaking a sulphuric stink and a trail not of blood but of black dust and ash. Unfortunately this instinctive retreat was not fully-fledged withdrawal. The tentacle continued to hover upon the threshold, where it was gathered close almost lovingly by its fellows, and another feeler slithered forward to take its place.
Hellcat remained crouched upon the table, smoothing her gown demurely. She cocked her head upon her shoulder and fixed her eyes upon Stefan. “Any other brilliant suggestions, Strange?” she purred, licking her lips.
“Don’t call me that. Where the fuck’s the old man?”
“Regrettably,” Hellcat sighed, “he was the first to be struck down. And, last I saw, he was being attended by the fourth member of our little enclave…”
# # # # # # # # # #
The old man - or, more respectfully, The Ancient, as he preferred to be addressed - moaned as gentle hands lay him back upon a Persian rug decorated with intricate whorls of a hundred different shades of red, gold and violet. The Ancient himself was dressed in robes of olive green that were usually immaculate but which were presently shredded in numerous places, most frequently about the arms. The skin beneath was lacerated with tiny bites, many of which had drawn blood. There was also blood in his snow-white hair. Alongside him, round blue eyes peeped out from beneath a fringe of platinum blonde as the girl in attendance - Samantha Parrington, also known as Valkyrie - looked on in concern.
“So strong now,” The Ancient whispered, his eyelids flickering in perpetual blink. “So big. So hungry. Have I truly been away so long…?”
Samantha stood back from the rug, wringing her hands. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to do! She was just eighteen years old, so frail, so unsure. No experience of the world save for the misery that her mental illness and subsequent institutionalisation had brought her. All this - The Ancient and his mysteries, this hideous Sanctum Sanctorum with its shifting walls and floors, these strangers she found herself aligned with against some extra-dimensional evil - she understood none of it. She wanted none of it. And yet, just as The Ancient had told her, she knew this was her destiny.
She could be strong. She had it within her. But this morning, just a few minutes earlier, she had been an observer as The Ancient had performed some arcane rite before a previously innocuous door in the dining hall, only for it to suddenly slam outwards upon its hinges and to reveal not another room but instead a well of such darkness, a void, as if a threshold had been opened upon the outer reaches of some distant galaxy… and then, with barely a heartbeat’s hesitation, the beast had appeared, swarming and slithering and sucking, all eyes and teeth and shapeless limbs. Attacking the old man, grasping him and biting him and almost dragging him away into the black only for Samantha to haul him free at the last moment and ferry him here. How could one be strong when faced with that?
“The sword,” The Ancient murmured, his eyes suddenly snapping wide and retaining a sense of lucidity. “Dragonfang. Align the blade with the other artefacts of power - all four, forever linked…”
Samantha’s hand went to the sheath belted at her slight waist. She was wearing blue jeans and a plain ivory blouse, but also a soft cloak of midnight blue velvet fastened about her throat with a pearl clasp. This cloak and the black leather sheath were a contrast to her otherwise ordinary clothes, a juxtaposition of the commonplace and the fantastic, but it was the sword in its scabbard that was truly otherworldly. Dragonfang. Samantha clasped the hilt and slid it free, and at first glance there was no extension of a blade to be seen; however, with the barest flex of the wrist so the cutting edge appeared, an impossibly thin sliver of silver and electric blue. And as the nervous girl drew her weapon so a palpable transformation came upon her, her frailty vanishing as she straightened her shoulders and back, set her jaw, and looked on with blue eyes now bright and eager for the battle. In that moment she was Samantha no more.
“Do not seek to kill,” The Ancient whispered. “The creature serves a purpose of which you cannot conceive. But, for our purposes, it must be tamed. Commanded. Named.”
The magical blade flashed, and a pair of rose red lips curled in an enigmatic smile.
“Instruct me,” Valkyrie said, eagerly. “And we, the master’s disciples, shall endeavour to succeed…”
# # # # # # # # # #
Doctor Strang - or rather Doctor Strange as, infuriatingly, the others were insistent on calling him, presumably because they considered it droll - raised his hands before his face so that he could read the silver runes embroidered into the palms of the golden silk. These runes moved constantly, drifting and swirling in lazy spirals, splintering and reforming into new shapes. Another example of the impossibility of magic. The runes spoke to Strange in ways he couldn’t comprehend, prompting words of some ancient language to form and spill from his lips in a mystic invocation.
In honesty, it was all bollocks: he couldn’t understand a single fucking syllable of it. However, on the few occasions he had used the runes the resulting enchantments had proved remarkably effective. Unfortunately, he was about to discover that his newly developed magical expertise wasn’t always so reliable.
As Hellcat and Blade pressed forward against the tentacles from the void so Strange attacked from a safer vantage, muttering his incantation and then looking on in wonderment as trails of ruby energy suddenly began to spool from his fingertips. The energy was akin to something between light and smoke, spreading over a wide area with some haste without dissipating and then beginning to form into a surfeit of spinning rings. Then, as the tendrils lashed back and forth, these rings began to encircle them and draw tight…
Hellcat saw the influx of the crimson circlets and glowered. “What are they?” she snapped. “Hula hoops? Can’t you magic up something more useful?”
Strange glanced across at her. “Like what?”
“I don’t know! Something… big. Like a bolt of lightning, or a gigantic hammer - ”
“A hammer? What, I’m Wile E. fucking Coyote, now? How about I spark up a massive fuck-off anvil over its head while I’m at it, eh? Jesus…”
“I was just suggesting,” Hellcat snapped. She turned her attention back to the fiend from the void, decidedly cross, but when she witnessed how effective the ruby rings actually seemed to be proving she exhaled a private sigh of relief. She was a skilled fighter; her lithe body swayed in a mesmeric dance as she weaved between the invading tentacles, and as she moved she delivered a series of vicious, slashing blows with hands that were spread rather then clenched into fists, allowing her fingers - tapered into sharp claws - to wreak their havoc. The occasional cloud of green flame from puckered lips was also an option. However, her methods were proving less effective against this extraterrestrial foe than they might against a more humanoid adversary. Blade, in comparison, was faring rather well. His combat style was more that of a bruiser than an athlete, and he employed his upper body strength to generate significant power in every flurry of punches he unleashed. Even more valuable, his fists weren’t simply pulverising the tendrils as they attempted to assault him, they were shredding them into ribbons of oil and rubber, and ash for blood: even more then Hellcat his hands were quite literally deadly weapons, blades in themselves, possessed of a preternaturally razor-sharp edge.
Blade also seemed to be enjoying the fact that he could really let loose against this adversary, Hellcat noticed. In the short time of their acquaintance - and, really, she knew hardly anything about any of her companions at all, least of all this grim, reticent fellow - she had come to suspect that his spiritual disposition, so at odds with the role he had been forced into, would perhaps prove to be a disadvantage. They were all of them going to be called upon to sacrifice a measure of their humanity in the difficult times ahead, she suspected. For her that would be a paltry forfeit. But for Blade…? Not all of their enemies would be sculpted from such excessive foreign matter as this fiend. Would he be so willing to use his deadly fists against those who masked themselves in more human guise?
Strange barked in triumph as the crimson bands he had conjured continued to set about the monstrous tentacles, tightening and knotting and restricting the beast’s advances. “Gigantic fucking hammer, my arse,” he muttered under his breath. “Woman thinks I’m a fucking Loony Toon. Swear to God, if… if…”
He faltered. He looked on, aghast. “Oh, fucking fuck it,” he said.
Strange’s jubilation was crumbling precisely because the sorcerous rings had began to do that exact same thing: they were fracturing and then disintegrating as the tentacled abomination doubled its efforts to break free and then surged forward through the darkness of the void, a hundred thousand eye-mouths screeching in rage. The threshold trembled. Hellcat and Blade both faltered quickly beneath this renewed attack, as first one and then the other was plucked from their feet and slammed down against the dining table pressed to their backs. Oak splinters filled the air. Strange cursed, gloved hands trembling as he looked in desperation to the runes. The same invocation was swimming before his eyes. But if it had failed once, what hope was there for a second attempt?
“Shuma-Gorath!”
Strange heard this declaration, and recognised the female voice that had uttered it, distinct as it was with its Scandinavian cadence. He then heard the chorus of rage from the beast transform instantly into screams of anguish. Pain… and fear?
“Shuma-Gorath!” Valkyrie bellowed once more, as she descended the spiral staircase at the head of the room and then vaulted up onto the dining table. She strode forward, the heels of her black calf-boots drumming out a heartbeat on the oak, her midnight cloak sweeping majestically behind her. Her blonde hair, almost white, lit bright like a halo. The nigh-invisible blade of her sword winked in and out of existence as she raised the weapon aloft. “Shuma-Gorath, I name thee. Shuma-Gorath, I command thee. Retreat now. Retreat!”
A number of the ravaging tentacles did as bidden, but a dozen or more remained, slithering and hungering in the doorway. Valkyrie’s blue eyes narrowed. She pursed her lips. And then, with a beguiling sweetness, she smiled. “Good,” she breathed. “I was hoping you’d need some persuading…”
Valkyrie skipped forward along the length of the table and then leapt, already swinging Dragonfang with abandon - so casually, in fact, that she almost caught Blade with a glancing slice as he rose beside her. He flinched back with a half-inch to spare, jaw slack as he realised how close he had come to receiving a second scar. “What, it’s not enough that I’ve got eyeballs on stalks trying to kill me?” he cried.
There was no apology from Valkyrie. She simply waded into the battle with the beast, Shuma-Gorath, guiding her blade with speed and precision as she hacked and thrust at the petulant tentacles that refused to withdraw. Dragonfang’s shimmering edge cleaved through rubbery flesh with ease, misting the air with black dust and the remnants of punctured eye-mouths. The fiend screamed, louder now than at any time before.
Buoyed, Blade and Hellcat also pressed forward once more; and, although each of them was now labouring after the pounding they’d received, they were both clearly in the mood for vengeance. More tendrils were shredded by stabbing hands and claws, or engulfed in belches of green flame, causing them to die or recoil. Valkyrie bellowed in some foreign tongue, her words unknown but their meaning evidently an exclamation of victory. Yet there was a measure of overconfidence here, Doctor Strange saw, mirroring his own premature joy of minutes before. For deep in the void the mass of writhing tentacles and eyes that was the entity known as Shuma-Gorath, though weakened, was not yet defeated. Strange’s eyes narrowed.
“Okay,” he breathed. “Second time’s a charm, as they say…”
He began to recite the enchantment formed by the runes upon his palms once more, and again a chain of ruby rings began to spool from his fingertips. Again the crimson bands flooded the immediate area - and beyond, past the threshold of the open door and out into the darkness of the void - and again they sought to ensnare the limbs of Shuma-Gorath. On this occasion, however, the magic was to prove stronger than the physical might of the beast. Tentacles strained against the ruby rings but were unable to shatter them as before. Shuma-Gorath thrashed and screeched in anger that soon bled into panic, but there was no escape. It could only watch on through thousands of flickering pupil slits as its four conquerors amassed at the threshold, shoulder to shoulder. Four Defenders.
“We’re glowing,” Hellcat murmured.
“Actually,” said Strange, “I’d say we were fucking awesome.”
Hellcat regarded him as one might an imbecilic child. “No,” she replied, slowly, “I mean we’re glowing. Look…”
She raised one hand. The emerald ring upon one delicate finger - her gift from The Ancient - was indeed shining star-bright with an inner light. Beside her, Blade’s crucifix was similarly aglow, as was Valkyrie’s sword. Doctor Strange’s gloved hands completed the shimmering circle.
“All four, forever linked,” Valkyrie said. “Those were The Ancient’s words. And I can feel it. Can’t you? We’re stronger together.”
“It’s true,” a parchment-thin voice sighed. The four of them turned to see the old man behind them, at the foot of the spiral staircase. Valkyrie made a move towards him, her expression concerned, but The Ancient merely smiled and waved her away.
“I’ll be fine in good time,” he told them. “I didn’t survive to be this old without knowing a few tricks about healing.” Strange arched an eyebrow.
“And how old are you?”
“The specifics aren’t important. But this being you have just snared between you is more archaic still…”
The Ancient advanced slowly, aided by a gnarled walking cane. Expression inscrutable, he gazed out past the threshold into the dark space beyond where the tentacled beast remained tethered. “Shuma-Gorath,” he breathed. “The Guardian of the Void. I must say, you all did remarkably well to survive its attentions.”
“So… what?” Hellcat snapped. “This was some kind of test?”
“In a sense, perhaps. But it was also an essential task to undertake should we harbour any illusions that we can ultimately protect this world from The Cabal. The Void, you see, is a linkspace, an emptiness between realms: this Earthly plane, the Hellbound Islands, the dominion of dreams, the Eternal Dread… and so many others. Dormammu and his kindred can transgress the barriers by accessing the collective human consciousness, and thus the first battle will be fought here. However, the war will be won in these other places, the realms of The Cabal. And now we have tamed the Guardian we can traverse the Void with freedom. We can visit the farthest corners of this planet in a matter of moments, treading the dimensional pathways - and we can ride the breach into the fortresses of our enemies.”
Doctor Strange exchanged glances with his companions. “Right,” he said, stiffly. “And you couldn’t have told us all this before you opened the fucking door? Or at least waited until we were all out of bed?”
The Ancient’s eyes clouded. “I… underestimated Shuma-Gorath’s power. The length of time I’ve been away, perhaps - or The Cabal’s infraction of the linkspace vortex has allowed the Guardian to feed more readily upon outside energies, augmenting its potency. I - ”
“You screwed up.”
It was Blade’s voice. The others looked at him, surprised. So far in his residence here at the Sanctum Sanctorum he had been decidedly reverential towards their elderly host, but now his eyes were as dark and cold as the Void beyond the doorway. “You gather us here, give us these ‘artefacts of power’, and then proceed to risk our lives. I’d at least like to assume that you know what you’re doing.” Blade leaned in close, every aspect of him suddenly as menacing as his scarred face suggested. “Forgive us, then, if we’re not exactly brimming with confidence right now…”
He turned then and stalked away. Lips pursed, Hellcat did the same, brushing black dust casually from her dishevelled gown and stained legs as she passed. Valkyrie followed on, but only after sheathing Dragonfang and laying a consoling hand upon The Ancient’s shoulder.
Doctor Strange remained, standing beside the old man as they both gazed out into the darkness. Abruptly, after the melee that had gone before, there was now an oppressive silence. Strange regarded the ruby rings that were binding Shuma-Gorath, reducing this previously great and terrible horror to such impotence, then glanced down thoughtfully at his hands. He looked at The Ancient, a faint smile at his lips.
“I did that,” he said, wriggling his gloved fingers. “Back in the hospital in Stuttgart where we first met, you told me that the magic would speak through me. That I was the strongest. I think you were right.”
The Ancient observed his disciple calmly, not in flicker in his eyes. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, you are. But, as the lovely Miss Walker postulated, this morning’s events may well prove to have been a test of sorts. An example. Of what perils might result from overconfidence, and conceit…”
“Uh-huh.”
Strange nodded, but his eyes had drifted back towards Shuma-Gorath. Their prisoner. His prisoner. He wriggled his fingers again, watching the dance of silver runes upon his palms, and his smile became a grin. In contrast, The Ancient was watching on with a certain measure of disquiet. He reminded himself that no disciple had ever entered into his charge fully formed, and that among these present four there was likely far more to alarm him where at least one other - Hellcat - was concerned. Stefan Strang was raw, arrogant. An individual’s first real exposure to power was always a difficult period. He would, surely, come to understand his responsibility. And yet…
Doctor Strange clapped his mentor on the shoulder and cast him a wink. “Don’t worry,” he said, charmingly. “I am paying attention. Honest. Trust me - I’m not the kind of guy who’ll let one achievement go to his head. Now, how about we go rustle up some bacon and eggs for breakfast? I’m fucking starving…”
next issue: Stefan confides in his new companions his concerns over Clea Balsamo, the married woman he was seeing before his accident… and Karloff Mordo begins to assemble his Order of the Damned. How will these two paths intersect?
author’s notes
Apologies to all who were expecting the return of Mordo this issue, as claimed by the Next Issue teaser last time out. Sitting down to write it occurred to me that, sometimes, best laid plans must be set aside to accommodate the timeless awesomeness that is Shuma-Gorath. Eyes on tentacles? You just can’t beat it.
I have a few classic Defenders characters, both friend and foe, in mind for future stories. If YOU, dear reader, have a favourite then feel free to drop me a line and let me know. I can’t promise I’ll include everyone, but I’m always in the market for ideas…
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