Marriage of Souls

Warren looked up from the newspaper he was reading and blinked. "Who?"

Logan threw up his hands and blew out a pent-up breath, "What d'ya mean who? Shani! She's been sulking for four weeks. She's been walkin' around this house glarin' at everybody and muttering bitchy comments ever since she sent those three packing. She's got a chip on her shoulder the size of Rhode Island for everybody."

"Kind of like you."

Logan's eyes narrowed, his lips compressing into a thin white line. "That ain't funny, bird boy."

One elegant eyebrow shot up. "She isn't getting to you, is she Logan?" A sly smirk followed. "She's been spending her nights with Gambit, hasn't she? That isn't...bothering you, is it?"

One lip curled up in a snarl. "You got sex on the brain, or somethin'? What's bothering me is that she acts like an angst-ridden teenager. And she's takin' it out on everybody else."

"She's entitled, don't you think? She's been through a lot in the past month. Jean wasn't exactly all sunshine and roses when she was resurrected the first time, either."

Logan disagreed. "That's hardly the same thing. Jean went through hell and had to sacrifice herself to save the rest of us--"

"And Shani went thorough a hell of a marriage and killed herself to get away from it."

"Why are you on her side?"

"Why are you always on Jean's?"

Logan pulled back, stung. Then his eyes narrowed on Warren's pale blue face. His jaw was a solid line, like he'd been clenching his teeth for quite a while. He was scrutinizing the newspaper and hadn't really looked at Logan yet. With uncommon clarity, Logan suddenly understood. It kept him from laying the other man out. "What did she say to you?"

"She made an offhand remark. About Candy." He spoke in a carefully neutral tone, referring to Candy Southern, the woman who might have been the love of Warren's life. If she had lived.

It said a lot about Warren's strength of character that he was able to defend Shani, even after she'd needled all the vulnerable places in his heart. "I liked it better when she was afraid to talk."





Shani lay in the cool grass at the edge of the world, shivering in the soft embrace of the night wind, staring up at the stars. She was counting them.

The past week had marked no progress, no information, nothing except the blessed absence of Joan of Arc and the 5:30 A.M. morning wake-ups. Charles, although he was careful not to show it, was running out of ideas. He had searched the depths of her mind and found nothing more interesting than pieces of ancient memories, like lost file fragments. Trying to breach the center, the house of glass in the peaceful clearing, had only brought them both pain. The only hypothesis Charles had been able to make was that the "house" was Shani's center; the place where she had withdrawn when her life had been so ravaged by her parents' deaths and Essex's abuse. To reach her full potential, she would have to open the door. It was the only way.

Beast had been almost orgasmic about her DNA, on the other hand. It seemed that Shani had eight genetic variations, the coveted X-factor, on each chromosome. Because of this, Charles also surmised that Shani's current talents of levitation, divination, and "soul stealing" were mere shadows of her actual abilities. The only thing that worried him was that something might break down the walls Shani had built before she could learn to control her power, however much it might be, and cause destruction beyond measure. Another star system destroyed, perhaps. Among other things, Shani's eyesight was... not normal. Besides being able to see far beyond human range, she'd begun to see startling flashes of everyone's soul, probably a side effect of the Professor's constant probing. They were bright and blinding, rings of rainbow light around a white center that blotted out any glimpse of the person's face. And then it was gone, and she would open her eyes to find herself staring at Rogue or Storm or Bobby across the breakfast table. The flashes were painful and intense, and Shani had taken to wearing sunglasses at all times of the day. She'd never done that before. Before, she'd been able to see the faintest of halos around people's bodies, mere whispers of spirit Shani had once used to track people. It was how she had been able to find Gambit in the huge house that first night. She had, in effect, followed his soul.

And she'd begun to hear things. Words that came from nowhere and nothing, floating to her on the tail end of a dream or a song. The words were soft and formless, and she was at a loss to understand them. So she said nothing, preferring to put as much distance between herself and everyone else as often as possible, preferring to give them no reason to label her a mental case.

They thought she was selfish and petty, and if it weren't for her unnatural hatred of mirrors, they might have had reason to call her vain. They thought she was being childish, and maybe they were right.

Maybe they were right.

Warm tears slipped like a calm tide from the corners of Shani's eyes and rolled back into her hair. What did it matter? What did anything matter?

#Stop feeling sorry for yourself.#

Shani gasped and lurched to her feet, turning around and around. Nobody was there. The voice had been there! It had! She wasn't going crazy!

#Not crazy. Just stupid.#

Shani's eyes narrowed, certain someone was playing with her. Standing in front of her probably, snickering behind his hand. "Who are you?" she asked, clenching her fists and bringing them up in front of her. "Show yourself."

A calloused hand slapped across Shani's face, sending her to the ground. She fell with a stunted little "Uph" and blinked rapidly, waiting for the stars to stop spinning.

#Next time, get your hands up higher.# And there was laughter in the voice.

"Who are you?!" She wheezed out, pressing suddenly cold hands to her burning face. Her fingertips touched blood, and there were four long welts across her left cheek. "Oh, my God."

#No, not quite.# Laughter rippled through her, another outburst from him.

"You hurt me," she told the visitor.

#Would you like me to lie and say I'm sorry?#

"Yes."

#That's too bad. Because I don't want to lie to you.#

"What do you want, then?"

This might have been what he was waiting for. Because he changed. His voice disappeared from her head and instead he moved beside her, for his voice whispered in her ear, dark and rough. "I want you to run."

The last syllable was hardly silent before Shani was on her feet. The thought flashed in her mind, but she refused to believe it, just as all well-meaning fools refuse to believe they have wrought disaster. Crashing through the forest from the other side of the estate, Shani fixed her sights on the bright, burning lights of the mansion through the dark, menacing shapes of the trees.

But she forgot about the pond.

Shani fell head-first into the water and promptly lost the battle. She was swallowing more of the pond than she was swimming through, and she sank to the bottom faster than a brick. The weight of her conscience dragged her down. She grabbed at handfuls of water, flailing and kicking and clawing her way to the surface.

Dragging herself up on the bank, she pressed her face to the sandy ground and sucked in several sharp, gasping breaths of air. Heaving herself to her feet, she surged forward, intending to reach sanctuary before he was upon her.

He was. Shani took all of two steps before the back of her T-shirt was grabbed. He spun her around and threw her back into a tree.

Breathless, terrified, she waited as he grabbed her collar in one ruthless hand and dragged her upwards against the tree. He still hadn't shown himself, but there was no need. Pain lanced through her as there was another flash. This time, there was no white light surrounded by the rainbow bands of good intentions, there was only a painful nothingness. The black emptiness of this man's soul was wholly and completely void, blank and endless enough to swallow all other souls until there was nothing left of life, of promise, of hope.

She knew who he was before he introduced himself.

"I am Legion."

Right before her fist closed over her resolve and slammed home.





Shani's eyes snapped open, fixed and wide until the sharp edges of the stars high overhead cut into her consciousness. She was lying on her back, in the same position and place she had started in, on the far side of the forest away from the mansion. She was dry and clean and felt no pain. Until she tried to move.

She might have been able to dismiss the entire incident as a disturbing and hellacious dream if her face wasn't hot and stinging and her right hand wasn't bleeding, all the skin mysteriously gone from her knuckles. Flexing her hand sent a shock wave of electricity through her entire body, an unnatural reminder to an unnatural experience. She grimaced and rose to her feet, trying to ignore the strain of her muscles as they, already overworked and misused, stove to do her bidding.

Counting steps instead of stars, Shani made the laborious trek back to the house, slipping and sliding on the slick green grass and breathing in the thick air, heavy with the scent of an approaching thunderstorm. Since she wanted to take as little a chance as possible of being seen, she doubled around back of the building and took a running-closer to limping-leap upwards, grabbing the railing of one of the second-floor balconies with her uninjured hand. Her sweaty grip slackened, and she slid down one of the bars, jerking to an abrupt halt.

It took three tries, but she managed to sling one leg upward, over the wooden rail, which, from her precarious angle, looked too dainty to support her weight. Rocking back and forth, she somehow hurled herself from the bars onto the balcony floor, where she ended up in a tangled heap.

Funny, she thought as she looked up at the hazy black sky, I don't think I've ever had Orion wink at me.





As luck would have it, she'd thrown herself into Logan's room. Praying he would stay downstairs and bicker with Warren for a little longer, she stripped and took a shower, biting down on her lips to still the wounded shriek that rose in her throat as she ruthlessly scrubbed her face, body and hair with the course, pine-scented soap Logan preferred. There was no hope for the T-shirt; it was bloodstained beyond recognition, but she put back on the underwear and jeans and went rifling through Logan's drawers-his closet, that is-for another garment. Pulling out the first bit of fabric she laid hands on, Shani pulled the purple-and-green crossbar patterned flannel over her head and knotted it at her waist.

In the medicine cabinet, she found antiseptic tape and several bottles of unidentifiable liquids in thick brown glass jars, each with Japanese lettering on their paper labels. Curious, and well aware of what had happened to the cat, she pulled out the rubber stopper and sniffed delicately at one jar's contents. Recoiling, she capped the bottle and put it back before the noxious fumes could singe her nose hairs further.

"Jesus! That'll put hair on your chest for sure. . . ."

Sifting through the bottles and jars, she found a plainly labeled tube of Neosporin and put it to use, covering her knuckles with the tape. Then, she turned her attention to her face. Now that they were clean, the four scratches, fingernail tracks from her assailant, didn't look too bad. She smeared aloe from yet another bottle on her face and let it go.

She was rummaging through the chest of drawers before she could consciously react, up to her elbows in Wolverine's underwear. She found what she was looking for laying against the back of the drawer, tucked neatly into the corner. It was smooth and hard, inlaid with red jade and mother-of-pearl. She hadn't really been sure it would be there, but didn't all men keep some kind of weapon in their underwear drawer?

She flipped the thing around, pleased when the blade of the butterfly knife clicked into place. Now this felt safe.

"Find what yer lookin' for, honey?"

With a muffled gasp, she spun around and might have knifed him if he hadn't grabbed her wrist and turned the blade away from himself. "Yeah," she breathed, "I did. Can I borrow this?" she indicated the weapon.

"Depends on what you're going to do with it."

"I thought I'd learn how to use it... I think it's time I stopped playing around."

He shrugged, considering it. "All right. I s'pose so. Just as long as you don't use it t'shave yer legs or anything."

Shani laughed. "Thanks." It took her four tries and some help from Logan, but she flipped the knife closed with an elegant flourish of her hand. Which, unfortunately, brought his attention to it. He took her hand in his, running his fingers over the bandage.

"Who have you been fightin'?" The backs of his fingers slid over the scratches on her face.

"Nobody," she murmured, her eyes fixed on his face in an effort to discern whether or not he was buying it. "I fell. Outside. In the lake. It was an accident." The broken little explanation ground to a halt, and Shani waited like a delinquent, praying to be let off the hook.

He went for it. "Next time be more careful."

She was gone before he could finish his sentence. "And next time, get yer hands up higher."





Shani stole through the halls, avoiding the lights and voices of the inhabitants. She didn't want to see anyone. She needed time to think. So, against her better judgment, she escaped outside, all the way to the pond she may or may not have fallen into earlier.

But she had. There were footprints in the damp soil and the marks of clawing fingernails where she'd tried to pull herself up on the bank. There were two sets of footprints.

Shani collapsed beside the lake, pulling her knees up to her chest, folding her arms around them. She stared at her shoelaces until even they seemed to be whispering to her. What had happened earlier was impossible; the things she had sensed were impossible; the suspicions she had had about the "Legion" character were impossible. Everything was impossible, and she had no explanation for any of it.

Then, born of a sudden, brutal rush of insight, she knew. It had been her own stupidity that had brought him here, and it would be up to her to get rid of him. Just four short, hard weeks ago, she had said, "You expect me to use my powers for... Goodness?" and then, scornfully, "So, you think I'll join the forces of God?" and finally, the most damning act of all: She had dismissed and destroyed her erstwhile protectors and told them that she would find a new teacher.

The voices on the wind rose up in her ears, united, in one merciless accusation: "... There was a war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought the dragon... called Satan, the Devil... Jesus asked the demon, 'What is thy name?' and the demon answered, 'My name is Legion: For we are many..."

Her outcry, so tempting, hovering on the very edge of corruption, had been too irresistible a lure. He had heard it, and he had come for her.

Oh, God.

What was she to do? Renounce him and his evil, hoping it would actually drive him off? Enter a convent and devote her life to the good works of Christ? She didn't want it; she didn't want any of it.

Shani made a hoarse, ineffectual sound, rising to her feet to begin pacing. She'd never asked for this, none of it. If she had never killed herself, she never would have found out the truth. Prior to her death, she'd never even heard the word "Soulbinder." She could've just gone on believing she was a decrepit mutant and that would have been the end of it. If she had never died, Nathaniel would have just gone on and trained her as he wished; showing her what he wanted her to see, telling her what he wanted her to hear, teaching her what he wanted her to learn. She wished she were still married. Married, safe, and untouched. Funny how those were the exact securities she had been so hell-bent on achieving by killing herself

If she had never died...

She needed a near-death experience, and she needed it fast.





Jean was sitting in the library, flipping through a large, hardbacked book on religion and theology. Based on snippets of conversation she'd heard from Hank and Charles over the past few weeks, she guessed that the Soulbinder had a lot to do with the Afterlife. She'd found a mention of a spirit guide who was described as "the only mortal to walk the halls of the Palace of God," a legendary figure who appeared in most cultures' myths in one form or another. But that was it. The authors of the book apparently hadn't thought it important enough to go into detail.

Which was a damn shame, considering Shani's present problems.

"Hey, Red," Logan ambled into the room, "Have you seen Shani lately? I've got a bad feelin'."

"No, I haven't seen her since dinner. What do you mean a 'bad feeling'?"

"Well, last I saw her, she looked spooked and she was all cut up, like she'd just gone fifteen rounds with a weed whacker. She was playin' with one of my knives, too, and she looked so shell-shocked I let 'er keep it. But now I've got this feelin' that--"

Jean's eyes widened, showing white around the dark green centers. "Shani's dead."

"Nah, I don't think it's that serious--"

"No, I'm not kidding! She's dead!" Jean stood up, tripped, and pitched into Logan's arms.

"Sorry," she apologized, righting herself. But there was a tiny, rebellious pang of regret when she stepped back.

It took them an hour to search the entire house and grounds. Nothing was found; none of the cars were missing, her clothes still where she had left them. Jean had felt an intense burst of psionic energy, as though the sun had exploded, and then... nothing. The brightness of Shani's presence was gone.

Dead.





Shani had swept the area of the pond, erasing the evidence of her battle and putting everything to rights. The sharp winds, signaling an oncoming storm, would wash away the scent of her, making it difficult for Logan to get a lock on her. On the off chance that Jean or Psylocke or Charlie would detect her passing, it would still be a few hours before anybody thought about dragging the lake. Or, at least, she hoped so. She needed time.

After that, there had been nothing left to do but jump in.

It was hard, the business of drowning, but she accomplished it well enough. She held on to the wispy plants at the bottom of the lake, waiting for it to come. Her willpower waged war on her instincts for survival until there was nothing to do but catalog her organs as they shut down. She felt the blackness of approaching death and wished it closer.

It came quickly.





If it hadn't been for the fire, Shani might have thought she had suddenly regained consciousness and let the entire matter drop. But the pool she swam in was surrounded by a ring of fire, orange and red sparks dominated by that tiny, mesmerizing heart of blue flame. Breaking the surface, throwing her head back to gasp in the free air, Shani took in her surroundings. It was far from what she expected the enigmatic "afterlife" to be, actually. Brass wall sconces lit the room of white marble, carved into the side of a rock cavern and split into three levels. The pool resided on the lowest tier, and there were doors everywhere, leading off into dark corridors that went God knew where. "Like some gothic health spa," she muttered. Pulling herself up onto the marble steps, she attempted to walk out of the pool, but the fire converged on her, denying her exit. Wherever she walked, the flames rose to greet her. It took twenty minutes of grumbling and cursing before Shani suddenly bellowed, "Goddamn it! I'm the Soulbinder and I want in!"

The resulting uprising almost scorched Shani's eyebrows off; she threw herself back into the pool to avoid getting french-fried. But when she poked her head above the surface, ever so cautiously, the flames had melted to ash with scarcely a whisper. Expecting the flames to flare up at any moment and burn her ass, Shani bolted from the cold water and fled up the flights of stairs, to a doorway positioned in the exact center of the back wall. It was as good a place to start as any.

The place was cavernous and lit with violet light, brightened sporadically by golden pools of light cast by torches in the walls. Wandering aimlessly, time lost all meaning, Shani began to grow tired and listless. Crazily wondering if she'd made a mistake and retreated into her own mind instead of searching out passage between the living and the dead, Shani slid down the stone wall, her elbows propped on her knees and her head in her hands. This was the place, of that she was certain. She had died and been reborn here, listening to the voices of the three women whose efforts she was only now beginning to appreciate. The air bore the same incongruous warm breeze, scented with jasmine. Even in the darkness, she could feel the warm pressure of sunlight on her face. Everything here was the opposite of what it should be; she could see with her eyes closed, she felt the heated stone walls without touching them, at times, she had flashes of being weightless, blind and deaf. At times, she seemed to wander throughout identical corridors and empty chambers without moving. So now, Shani sat, her heard in her hands, wishing she could remember what she was doing here.

The voices rose to her rescue again. This time, they sounded nearer, less like phantoms and more like the spirits she was destined to lead. "Gateway..." was the only word that was recognizable in the sighing quietness.

The Gateway. Her intuition, an awareness that went deeper than knowledge, filled in the definition. The Gateway was the doorway between life and death, which would deliver the evil to Hell and the deserving to Heaven. The Gateway was part of the Soulbinder's domain. She was, basically, the greeter at Death's door.

"Help me," she whispered, "help me."

And the voices answered, louder than ever, individual voices of Soulbinders whose time had come and gone. "We cannot, for the book has already been written."

Book? There was a book?! Hell, all she had to do was get to the New York Library and look up 'Soulbinder' in the goddamn card catalog!, she thought derisively. Closing her eyes, she saw with her heart instead of her eyes. Now, the place was alive.

A living, breathing testimony to the sacrifices of humanity. The walls were white with hope, the air tinted black with the vices of men. But the walls remained solid, bastions of comfort to the dying and to the dead. Slivers of color, shades of hope and love and happiness, colored the walls rose, electric blue, and indigo. Reaching out a hand, Shani touched the walls again. This time, it met not the cool solidity of stone, but the bright, burning vibrance of the immortal soul itself, unfettered by the restraints of human existence. A pure soul.

The light and colored whiteness seeped into her skin as though she had suddenly turned into a sponge, taking it all in.

And then she knew the location of the book. With a war cry that would've done Geronimo proud, Shani spun around and went back to find the calm waters of the Pool of Forgetting. For only the Soulbinder was allowed to remember that such a simple pool of water was one of many doorways back to the mortal realm. A billion souls passed through the Gateway every day, and it simply wouldn't do for one of them to escape the uncertainty of death by leaping back into their former bodies.