altair-creed

‘Why?’ Watson asked, looking from one of his companions to another as they all sat in the empty common room of Joseph’s pub. ‘Why do you want coal?’ Jacob took a sip of the German lager, wiped his lips. ‘Elementary, good doctor,’ he answered. ‘Coal is necessary to power trains and ships. Frankfurt has a lot of those.’ ‘What does that have to do with our current situation?’ The military medic still couldn’t understand the importance of what Frye was proposing. He couldn’t follow the logic, if there were any at all. ‘We have German spies on our tails, doctor,’ Jacob said more patiently than he felt. ‘They use transportation. Steam transportation. To make steam you need coal.’ He spread his hands out in an inviting gesture: surely now the medicine man could finish the thought. ‘You want to stop transportation,’ Watson breathed as the pieces fell into place. ‘Without it, they can’t follow us.’ ‘But how will we get out?’ Julien asked from the other end of the table, his brother nodding in

‘They’re here,’ Jacob announced, holding out a folded paper, rather yellow and stained, sounding almost cheerful which piqued the good doctor. How could Frye always manage to affect such insouciance even in the middle of the hardest situations? Holmes, imperturbable, pipe in his mouth this early in the morning, took the thick paper and unfolded it - to find his own face staring up at him, a rather good likeness too. The Germans were an observant people indeed. They had caught well his hawk-like nose, the wrinkles around the eyes and forehead, even the eyes were the same steely shade. The detective smiled, amused (why waste time on irritation?) and grunted. ‘They took their time,’ he remarked, passing the Wanted poster on to Watson, who didn’t feel so sanguine at all. If the Secret Service were here, it meant they had found some crumbs of a trace. ‘You saw them?’ ‘Of course,’ the irresponsible renegade shrugged with the usual careless smirk. ‘They didn’t see me,’ he added, knowing what

Чтобы прикончить “сердцееда” надо было отрезать голову, но вот добраться до этой головы было не так просто. “Распылители” не куры, не поддаются, не беспомощные. Несмотря на их хилое телосложение, они были живучи как клопы. Они защищались, если в этом была нужда. Уничтожение костей - не первое (но самое главное) их орудие. Они умели драться, били сильно и точно. Ломали руки и ноги, а то и черепа. Остановить их можно, но не в одиночку. Как они нападали в паре, также надо и обороняться. Отвлечь внимание на себя, а партнёр сзади наносит поражающий удар. Этот прием срабатывал, когда удавалось отделить одного “сердцееда” от другого. А иначе удваивать команду. Был, конечно, и ещё одни способ обезвредить “колонии”: убить вожака. Однако, их не так просто вычислить - они ничем не отличались от рядовых. Опознавательных знаков не носили: некуда погоны пришивать. Но они обычно находились в самом центре “улья”, поэтому бить по нему имело смысл. Прицельный удар по зданию, где “колония” “проживала”

“I love you.” He’d thought her dead. He had seen her bloodied corpse in the woods, near the logging camp. He’d felt it, her death. His instincts were not wrong. He’d held her, buried her. Cried over her. Felt like his world had ended. The pain had been unbearable. The lie had been monstrous. Because her death had been a lie, a deception to get him, to make him agree to the experiment, that damned experiment of Stryker’s! The adamantium that made him virtually unkillable. The adamantium that had cost him his memory back then. The lie that had led him to find the island, the Three Mile Island, the nuclear power plant where Stryker had been hiding his hideous and heinous operation. Where the bastard son of a bitch had been experimenting on mutants, after having kidnapped them and duplicated their power, using their own DNA and injecting Wade bloody Wilson with all those powers. To make a mutant killer: it took one to kill one didn’t it? Kind of like catching criminals by using other

“Господи!” “Боже мой!” “Да ты видел!” “Смотри!” Бабы крестились, мужики таращились, дети кричали в восторге и испуге, собаки скулили, поджимали хвосты. Не каждый день ведь деревушку посещали двое мужчин на лыжах, один в изодранной одежде (рубашка и куртка на спине и груди висели клочьями - и ни одной раны! Это как?), оба волокли по волчьей туше за собой, крупные волки, шерсть в крови, глаза остекленевшие. Валерий старался не смотреть по сторонам, он ещё не совсем осмыслил то, что видел в лесу. По затылку шла дрожь, как будто мыши скреблись там (или когти по черепу). Животные инстинкты предупреждали его: брось его, беги! Он тебя убьёт! Но это было бы простой трусостью. А трусом Валерий себя не считал. Кроме того, он же сам вызвался искать Логана, когда его собратья начали умирать в бескостном состоянии. Он же предложил Тихону найти Росомаху. Тихон не очень-то и хотел. Он не доверял чужакам, а уж “англосаксам” тем более. Валерий нажал на него, однако, заверив его и других, что Логан это

“Это волк.” “Волки.” “А до этой деревушки ещё сколько?” “Пять километров.” “Думаешь добежим?” Логан закусил губу, пожал плечами, не очень обнадеживающая реакция. Судя по звуку, волк был голодный, но не один. Ведь прозвучало два клича, два завывающих вопля в плотном лесу, где быстро двигаться по прямой было невозможно. И сколько там ещё было волков? В стае могло быть от двух до десяти. И двое мужчин без каких-либо механических средств передвижения со скоростью для матёрых серых охотников стали ба лёгкой добычей - какое сопротивление могли они оказать белым клыкам и острым когтям? Ну, Логан мог бы покалечить одного-двух, а он, Валерий? У него ни клыков острых, ни когтей не имелось в наличии. Он что, палкой отбиваться будет? “Ещё не вечер, можно попробовать добраться до населенного пункта,” предложил он под аккомпанемент очередного приступа воя. Явно волки вырабатывали стратегию охоты на двуногих. Это не утешало, а, наоборот, пробирало до мозга костей. Росомаха ничего не сказал в ответ

“I love you.” He’d killed her. Just like that. Just…. Sunk his claws into her body, as deep as they would go. And killed her. Jean. He killed Jean. The woman he’d loved. The woman who didn’t love him. The woman who’d become something unstoppable, something unspeakable… more than a tool. Less than human. And he’d ended her life. Snuffed it out. Gotten close enough to her to cut the wire as it were. To rip her from this existence - as she’d wanted, the real her, the one he’d known, not the Dark Phoenix, not the primeval force bent on destruction of the universe and everything he and others had ever known. He’d killed her. He was a killer. A murderer. He’d have to live with it… “I love you…” he’d said, looking into her wild eyes that for a split moment, for the thousandth of a second had looked at him - and understood. She’d wanted him to end her life, to cut her loose, send her into another realm where she couldn’t hurt him or anyone ever again. And he’d done as she’d asked. Because… …

“You an assassin?” “Who's asking?” The young man with blue eyes swallowed, not having expected such an answer. “You kill people?” “Who wants to know?” It was dark in the cabin, no light at all, no moon, no stars. The youth wasn't even sure what he was looking at, there was nothing to see, just a disembodied voice from the dark. “I want to know,” he insisted, still standing in the entrance, winter wind and snow blowing into his back, chilling him even through the long wool coat. “I have a job for you.” “Ah,” a dry chuckle from the blackness, somehow sending even more shivers down his spine. “You're hiring.” The three syllables dripped with the kind of quiet venom that the youth hadn't heard before. It was disturbing. “Yes,” he confirmed. “I am.” He took a deep breath. “I want to find the man who killed my sister.” “I don't know and I don't care,” was the dismissive reply from the dark. “Go find a policeman.” “I already did, they ignored me,” the young man retorted, bitterly. “One of

“Сибирь. Тайга. Минус тридцать. Снег по колено, а то и выше. Идёт с утра. И где ЕГО нахрен искать? Следов нет. Ни звука. Тишина.” “Где ты, к чертовой матери?” Шмыгая носом, он огляделся. Сибирская тишь и глушь не для робких. Ни помощи, ни сотовой связи. Какая, к чертям, сотка? “Покажись, красотка, не прячься,” пробормотал он, подтянул рюкзак, лыжные палки опять вонзились в плотный снежный покров, и он продолжил прокладывать дорогу к непонятной но важной цели. Мир рушился вокруг, и нужны бойцы, где бы они ни были. “А ты ведь один из самых лучших.” He remembered. He remembered everything. He slid down the wall, holding his head in his hands, screaming at the rush of memories, of the former life that had been ripped from him, the two bullets in his skull, the women in his life, the enemies, all the wars he’d been to… his father, his brother… all of it came back, filling up his mind until he felt he’d burst open like a melon. “Logan.” He didn’t even hear the word, didn’t understand

It was finished. It was done. It was finally over. ‘If you reject me, I’ll take what I want. Disrespect me and you’ll get hurt.’ That’s what he’d said, so long ago. That’s what had started this long road, this spiral down, to this one day, this one place, this one hour, this minute in the deep winter of 1888. The Winter of Terror. The terrible winter of white and red, the colour of flesh, of lipstick smudged, of corset ripped. Of women dead. Of their entrails spilled out all around them in macabre messages, these messages all for one man, one man who’d been a father, a guide, a mentor. The Mentor. The betrayer. The teacher who had failed. The leader who had lost his gang. The Assassin who’d failed in his calling. The Assassin who’d compromised the Brotherhood. The Assassin who deserved to die… He sat back against the wall now, snow gently falling all around him, breathing hard, the long leather coat smudged with blood, dirt, torn in places with the long rough knife that now lay