The black shadows just outside the streetlights gave the park a feeling of secrets lost and danger to come. Tourists who walked near Jackson Park in the late hours walked quickly, sensing the danger, their hearts beating hard from the brush against imagined death. But it was that very closeness to the unknown, wrapped in the history of the old town, that brought them back the following year. Brought them back to the parties, back to the great Cajun cooking, back to the unknown danger just inside the nearest shadow or the closest hidden courtyard.
Remy LeBeau, aka Gambit, knew every shadow, every alley, every courtyard tucked behind iron gates. For years he had been part of those shadows, a part of the very real danger the tourists had feared. New Orleans was his home, the streets of the French Quarter his back yard.
And now, again, he had returned home, to the town he loved more than anything else in the world. But his return was not a joyous one. Something was wrong with his home city.
X-HEN
Very wrong.
He just didn’t know what.
A disturbing call from an unknown “friend” had brought him from the Xavier Institute in New York— Gambit’s new home among the super-team
kn
own as the X-Men—back to the Big Easy.
The “friend” had said only that the power was no longer in the Guilds in New Orleans. That now a man named Toole controlled things. And Toole did not understand the old ways.
The caller had hung up with no explanation as to how he had found Remy, or why he had even called. Remy knew he still had friends in the Guilds even though he was long ago outcast. More than likely it was one of them.
So he had gone home, and now the night air of New Orleans again wrapped him in its friendly thickness, the heat holding him like a mother would hold a child as he searched for clues.
He moved past Jackson Square and ducked into a shadowed alcove where he could watch the back entrance to a private club called the Bijou. The place had been there since before Remy was bom. The wooden tables were scarred with the bums of too many cigarette butts, the wooden floor warped from years of spilled drinks. Remy knew the air would be filled with a gray smoke that even during the early morning hours never seemed to clear. In the back room, a poker game would be going on continuously. In his memory, that back room had never been without a game.
Twenty minutes later, Remy’s wait ended as a trench-coated figure appeared from the dark passage and stepped
onto the sidewalk. He glanced both directions down the dark street and then turned to the right, away from the park, his hands deep in the pockets of his coat.
Remy knew the guy only as “York.” A tall, heavy-set man with blond hair, York had moved down from Chicago when he was twenty and had managed to survive. He was now a small-time player who ran a bookmaking operation across the river. Sanctioned by the Guilds and ignored by the cops, York kept his nose clean, staying only with his book. His only vice was that he liked to gamble away his profits and most likely had been doing just that tonight, in the famous back room of the Bijou.
Remy stepped from the shadow and quietly moved across the street behind the tall man, unheard and unseen. He had his own coat buttoned and his hand on two of his playing cards in his pocket, just in case York did something really stupid. Gambit had the power to charge any article with extreme kinetic energy that was released in a very destructive force on impact. A simple playing card, when charged and flicked, carried more destructive force than a bullet fired from a handgun.
“Y’ever hear de streets are dangerous,
man ami'V'
Remy asked as he neared the large man.
York spun, his right hand clearly holding a gun in the pocket of his trench coat.
“Kinda jumpy dere, York,” Remy said, smiling at the big man.
“LeBeau?” York asked, lowering his gun hand slightly, but not yet letting it go.
And Remy didn’t let go of the cards just yet, either.
“Y’expectin’ someone else?”
York shook his head, then took a deep breath. “You just startled me. What are you doing back here? Bella?”
The mention of his wife’s name jolted Remy. Bella Donna had recovered after being killed because he’d given her the sacred elixir of life. But when she awoke she had lost all memory of him. Now she had taken over as the head of the Assassins Guild. He was a thief, she an assassin. The two Guilds were sworn enemies from generations back. No, he was not here for Bella, and until now he had managed to keep thoughts of her pushed back.
‘Won,” Remy said clearly and firmly. “Just a little of de information.”
York had now dropped his hand completely, but Remy knew he still held his gun. But Remy also knew that York was too smart to move against him.
“I’ll tell you what I can,” York said, glancing around at the dark street to see if anyone was watching.
Remy knew that someone was watching, but he said nothing to the big man.
“Toole?” Remy said.
Even in the shadows and faint light of the street, Remy could see York’s face go pale. He quickly glanced again in both directions down the street, then stepped a half step closer to Remy.
“The guy’s a monster,” York said, his voice a harsh whisper. “Came into town about a year ago when they started one of the river gambling boats. He controls his people like they were puppets and ignores the old ways completely.”
“And nobody yanked his leash?” Remy couldn’t believe that the Guilds or the police hadn’t stopped the growth of a new crime boss. The power here had been balanced and working for such a long time, someone like Toole running loose could easily cause a bloodbath.
York shook his head. “I heard they tried a couple of times, but the guy has power. Almost unnatural power. He’s like a cancer eating at things, LeBeau.”
Remy nodded. “Where I find dis fellow?”
York shook his head. “That’s another thing about him. People don’t find him, he finds them. Like a ghost.” Remy only snorted. “Where,
mon ami?”
York looked a little panicked for a moment, then recovered. “Best I heard was that he had a warehouse down the river a ways, armed like a fortress. No one gets in.” Remy laughed. He was a thief. And one of the best, if not the best there had ever been. His training was to get in places where no one else did, and do it without being seen.
York again glanced around as if afraid someone might be watching, then turned to Remy. “Look, it’s been good seeing you, but I got to go.”
Remy only nodded and York looked relieved.
“Good luck,” York said and turned in the direction he’d been heading.
Remy stepped silently back into the shadows of a doorway and a moment later when York glanced around it was clear from his surprise that he couldn’t see Remy. LeBeau knew that, to York, he had simply disappeared off the street, an old thief’s trick.
But a harder trick was going to be disappearing from the person who had watched their conversation. The person standing in the shadows half a block up the street.
Remy had known he was there the entire time. Now to find out who he was.
The rotting-flesh stench of the dying man seemed to fill every comer of the sterile, white room. The smell was thick, choking, and almost sweet. It covered the hospital bed, the nightstand, and the four high-tech monitoring machines against the wall like a thick film in a drank’s mouth after a long night’s binge. During the day, the smell was almost bearable, with the air conditioners going and the windows open, but now, late at night, the room was closed up and the smell seemed to be even thicker than normal.
A rail-thin nurse with pale skin sat in a chair in front of the bank of machines and Gary Service, the younger son of the dying man, sat in a chair beside the bed.
Robert Service, the older son, stood in the door, the smell keeping him out of the room like a wall. Somehow he hoped that a slight breeze of fresh air would cover him from the hall. He couldn’t imagine how his brother stood the smell that close to the old man for as long as he did. It seemed the kid was always at the old man’s side, helping the nurses, talking with the doctors.
Robert, on the other hand, stayed in his office most of the time, on the far side of the huge Service mansion. He ignored the fact that his father was being eaten slowly by a nasty form of skin cancer. Someone had to watch after the family businesses, and with the old man dying, and Gary worthless when it came to such things, he was the one.
And it suited him.
Business in America was a ruthless place, where only the strong survived. And Robert considered himself ruthless. He planned on being one of the strong the day the old man passed into the next life. If Robert had his way, the Service millions would soon become the Service billions.
The old man moaned and Gary looked up. Robert had to admit that the kid looked tired. His green eyes were circled with dark rings and his hair was uncombed. He had some sort of orange food on his shirt from helping dear old dad eat. The kid had a heart and he cared about the old man for some reason. And that was Gary’s biggest problem. He had a heart. He would never make a good businessman.
“He’s coming around again,” Gary said, standing up so that he stood beside the old man, almost hovering. Beside the bed a faint
beep-beep-beep
signaled a slight increase in the old man’s heart rate. For some reason the old man had asked them both to be here, at this late hour of the night. Robert had no idea why, but that was true of many things his father did.
“Good,” Robert said. He managed to choke back his disgust at the rotting smell of human flesh and moved a step into the room and closer to the bed. The old man had given him instructions to bring a large sealed package from the old man’s personal safe. It now rested on the stand near the bed.
For two years, Robert had wondered what was in the heavy package, and had been looking forward to opening it the day his father died. Now it seemed he was going to
1-HEN
get the chance to see the contents just a little sooner than expected.
The old man opened his eyes and slowly let them focus on the ceiling. There was still a hardness to those gray eyes. In his nightmares, Robert would see those eyes glaring at him as the old man took his belt and hit him over and over. Twice a week for years, Robert had survived the old man’s beatings, while Gary never seemed to be touched by the belt. Never hit by the old man. It would be a joyous day, as far as Robert was concerned, when his father never opened those vicious, gray eyes again.
“Good,” the old man said, his voice hoarse. “You’re both here. Send the nurse away.”
With a wave of his hand, Robert chased the woman in white out of the room and closed the door behind her, trapping himself with the rotting smell, his dying father, and his weak brother.
“You brought the package?” his father asked, his voice gaining strength at the same time as the beeping from the machine increased in speed.
“On the nightstand beside you,” Robert said.
“Open it, please, Gary,” the old man said, his voice now firm and in control.
Robert watched as Gary pulled open the tape and the brown paper wrapping from the package. Inside was an ornate wooden box, about the size of a woman’s travel jewelry case. A wax seal covered the edge of the box, molded over a thin clasp. From what Robert could tell, the box hadn’t been opened in years.
“The jewel of the temple of Cyttorak,” the old man
said, staring at the still unopened box. ‘ ‘It must never be touched.”
“What?” Robert asked, stepping closer to the bed and the box, even though the smell pushed at him.
“Father,” Gary said, putting a hand gently on the decaying skin of the old man’s arm. “I think you should start from the beginning.”
The old man nodded. “Open the box first. And be careful to not touch the jewel.”
Gary nodded and used his fingernail to slice open the wax seal covering a small brass latch. Then he slowly raised the lid.
Robert gasped.
Gary said, “Oh, my.”
Inside the box, on a soft bed of white silk, was the largest emerald Robert had ever seen. At least half the size of his fist. It seemed to fill the area around the box with a green glow, as if it had an energy all its own.
Robert stepped over closer to his brother and stared at the emerald. The thing had to be worth millions, at least. He wanted more than anything to reach down and pick up the wonderful-looking stone.
“Be very careful,” the old man said. “You must never touch the emerald. Ever.”
Robert glanced at the old man who kept repeating the same craziness.
The cancer must finally be getting to his brain,
he thought. Robert moved back away from the choking smell of the dying man. “I think it’s time for that story, now.”
The old man nodded.
“It happened back when I was stationed in Korea
1 M£N
with the Army Corps of Engineers. My unit was working on building a bunker in what looked to be the remains of an old temple built into a rock cliff. One hot morning, out of the blue, an old monk approached us and told us a story of the former god of the temple, a monstrous being named Cyttorak.”
“Doesn’t sound like a Korean name to me,” Robert
said.
“It’s not,” the old man said. “The monk told us the god was before time, and not from our world. He said the temple was not a place for man.”
“And you believed him?”
“Of course not,” the old man said, snorting, then coughing at the effort. After a moment he went on. ‘ ‘When it became clear we would not leave, the old monk warned us that if we should find any gems, to never touch them, for fear of setting Cyttorak free on the earth again.” “Setting him free, huh?” Robert laughed.
His father ignored the interruption and continued. ‘ ‘Then the monk left. We got a good laugh from the story and went back to work.”
Robert nodded. From his memory of his hard-nosed father, that sounded right. More likely they ran the old monk off into the trees at gunpoint, but there was no reason to suggest that now.
“Three days later, while exploring a caved-in area under the temple, we found an old statue. It was a huge chunk of carved rock that showed an ugly beast of a creature sitting on a throne. His hands were extended outward, as if at one time he’d been holding something in each.” “Let me guess,” Robert said. “Cyttorak.”