Seth Voelker, better known as Sidewinder, pulled his cloak tight around his costumed form and stared up at the shattered arches of the collapsed church he stood in. Destroyed in the disaster that had rocked San Francisco, the church was a teetering gothic ruin empty of both grace and salvation. His eyes found the great blistered cross that still hung from one crumpled wall and he looked away instinctively.

It hung upside down now and his clients had taken the liberty of smearing blood and feces over the plaster form of the Savior.

Childish really, when you got down to it. But still, the Society couldn't afford to be picky with its clients these days. With the constant ups and downs that ANY business suffered, especially a firm like the Serpent Society, money was tight. Paychecks, healthcare, bail...the Society was practically leaking money. Voelker frowned and turned as a rattle of looses stones alerted him to the presence of the spokesperson for his clients.

"Mister Fetch." Sidewinder hissed as the robed figure seemed to bleed into existence out of the shadows. The red-eyed man smiled, lips wrinkling back from a mouth full of stickpin thin fangs. Dried blood coated the scraggly beard that covered Fetch's jaw and his long hair hung lank and greasy over his pinched, hungry looking face.

"Mister Voelker. What do you think of the...redecorating?" Fetch gestured languidly, his fingers topped by ragged nails that looked more like claws to Voelker. Sidewinder sniffed, thankful for his mask. It did more than hide his expressions. It also cut the stench. Fetch stank like an abattoir. All of them did really.

Vampires weren't known for their hygiene.

But they had amazing bank accounts. In the end that was all that mattered.

"Distasteful. I thought your kind had a sense of style."

"Anne Rice and Laurel Hamilton have much to answer for." Fetch grinned, eyes sparkling like rubies set in shadow. Voelker snorted.

"If you want them you'll have to pay extra. They're hardly the nobodies you've paid the Society to gather up 'til now."

"That won't be necessary. After all, you've brought us an Avenger. That's far better than any author." Fetch said. "Henry Pym's blood will add something special to the mix."

"And speaking of that mix..." Voelker said. Fetch smiled.

"One more. That's all we need. One more and the ritual prescribed by the Darkhold will be complete." Fetch licked his lips and tapped the side of his nose with a talon. "He will be returned to us then."

"Bully for you." Voelker snapped his cape dramatically and bowed. "And I have just the individual in mind..."

MARVEL 2000 PRESENTS...

"BLOOD WILL OUT"

Written by Josh Reynolds

"What?" Hawkeye glanced at his fellow Avengers. Moon Knight shrugged beneath his cloak. They, along with Spider-Woman and the winsome Wasp stood in the center of the empty, crumbling warehouse in San Francisco where only minutes ago they had been confronted by members of the Serpent Society. Moon Knight stared up through the cracked, skeletal timbers that marked where the roof had once been and then back down at Hawkeye.

"Princess Python. Former member of the Serpent Society."

"Yeah. Got that much. Thank you. Now why is this important?" Hawkeye said, gesticulating helplessly.

"Think about it for a moment, Barton."

"DuBois hasn't been a member of the Society since its inception." the Wasp said, her look stifling Hawkeye's retort. Moon Knight snorted.

"According to who?"

"Captain America."

Moon Knight was silent for a minute. "Be that as it may, Rogers doesn't keep track of his enemies the way I do. DuBois still has contact with several members of the Society as well as her old Circus compatriots. And she lives in California."

"So you think DuBois might be able to lead us to the Society?" Hawkeye said. "Sounds good. But considering the kind of odds we're facing, I think we need to wrangle some extra firepower. We need to get Iron Man and Darkhawk back."

"And Hank." the Wasp interjected.

"Of course." Moon Knight nodded.

"Jess, you feel like tagging along a little longer?" Hawkeye grinned at Spider-Woman. Drew shrugged.

"My dance card's free."

"How about replacing that dance card with an Avengers ID card after all this?"

"We'll see." She smiled. Hawkeye glanced at Moon Knight.

"How about you Moony-tunes?"

"No."

"Of course not. I'll ask again when you're not feeling so cranky."

"The answer will still be no."

"Of course it will. Moony?"

"Yes, Barton?"

"How about the time after that?"

Right now was for Death Adder. Who had disappeared, of course.

Probably someone else in the costume. Who better than him knew about that?

He swooped low between two collapsed buildings. An emerald tail covered in wicked looking spikes suddenly lashed out from somewhere and caught him across the face of his helmet and Stark cursed himself for not paying attention as he slammed into a brick wall, bounced into the one across from it and hit the ground with a clatter. Shaking his head, he rose to his hands and knees and looked up.

Death Adder leered expressionlessly at him from above, clinging upside down to a wall of the alley like Spider-Man, tail lashing. Iron Man began to stand and the assassin leapt down. Claws sheared through part of a shoulder guard and Stark blinked in shock as warning signals began to scream inside his helmet. The other set of claws slashed and tore several furrows in the armor of his torso, trailing sparks and bits of wiring. Iron Man staggered back, his repulsors humming to life and exploding out. Death Adder leapt straight up, avoiding the beams that punched out and left smoking holes in the opposite wall and the street. Brick dust sprinkled down as the Society member scrambled up the wall, heading for the roof.

"Going somewhere?" Darkhawk said as Death Adder cleared the edge of the roof. The newest member of the Avengers West caught Death Adder in the throat with an extended arm, sending him sprawling. The assassin rolled to his feet as Darkhawk cut through the air in a hard turn and shot back towards him.

"Did you like that? Little something Spider-Man taught me. How about how Iron Man set you up and I took you down? Teamwork. Bet you're wishing you had some of that right now," Darkhawk said as he fired his grapple. The claw snared Death Adder's throat and Darkhawk hurtled past, dragging the assassin with him. Jerking his arm the Avenger cracked the whip and sent Death Adder hurtling through the remains of a water tower. The skeletal structure gave a groan and toppled, burying the mute killer under a pile of burnt wood and a cloud of dust. Darkhawk landed on the roof with a thump, retracting his claw. He looked up as Iron Man landed beside him.

"Teamwork. Gotta love it."

"Shut up."

"Touchy-touchy," Darkhawk said. He gestured at the marks on Iron Man's armor. "Bet that stings."

"Systems are already repairing themselves," Iron-Man said as he walked towards the collapsed pile of wood. "More than I can say for him."

"Good."

"No. Not good. Not anything even remotely close to good. We need him conscious and talking," Iron-Man snapped. He whirled and poked a finger dead in the center of Darkhawk's chest, red armor scraping against the gem there. Darkhawk stepped back.

"I'm sorry! Jeez."

"Sorry doesn't cut it with the Avengers, kid! You want to prove you're not just some sort of brain-dead vigilante and ready to play in the big leagues-"

"I think I've already proved that," Darkhawk said softly. "A couple of times over by my count. You've got a real selective memory there."

"I remember enough, kid. I remember you attacking me our first time out."

"Mind control."

"Other Avengers have been mind-controlled. None of them attacked another Avenger."

"Bullshit."

"What did you sa-"

"Bullshit. You heard me. I'm calling bullshit on that, hell on this whole conversation!" Darkhawk said, his voice rising. "You've been riding my ass since day one tin head and I-"

Whatever else he was going to say went unsaid as the rubble of the water tower exploded outward and Death Adder sprang out, claws squealing down Darkhawk's back and cutting easily through the alien armor. Darkhawk screamed and crumpled to his knees, energy and yellow fluid leaking from the furrows in his armor. Death Adder leapt over the kneeling hero and dove towards Iron-Man who stepped back smoothly and released a wide beam of energy from his chest plate. Death Adder was flung backwards, wreathed in crackling energy. He hurtled over the edge of the building and tumbled down into the alley below. Iron Man knelt beside Darkhawk.

"Are you okay?"

"I-hhk-I-no. Nothing's ever-ever cut through my armor like that." Darkhawk touched the wounds in his back and shuddered as Iron-Man helped him to his feet. He stared at the yellow fluid-his blood? Was that his blood?-pooling in his hand. "I think I'm bleeding to death."

"No, you're not." Iron Man had circled behind him and was probing delicately at the wounds. He dipped his fingers in the fluid and examined it. "It's not blood. It's poison. Death Adder secretes poison on his claws. Your body is expelling it. Benefit of an alien healing factor I assume," Iron Man said calmly. "Amazing."

"What?"

"Your armor is self-repairing."

"Oh yeah, that's great. Stings like a bitch though..."

"What does?"

"This. Waiting around. I wanna hit something!"

"Well we are on the way to a super-villain's house. I'm pretty sure she'll put up some kind of fight."

"It's Princess Python."

"Still..."

"I mean, is this it? Is this what the Avengers do now? What happened to punching Korvac in the head?"

"Korvac's dead I think..."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, yeah I do," Hawkeye snorted. "You should have been here these last couple of months. We tangled with intergalactic parasites, giant tree-men and the Thermodynamic Man. Wild times, but nothing like the good old days."

"What were the good old days? Graviton?"

"I miss Graviton."

"Really?"

"And Count Nefaria."

"May I ask why?"

"Haircuts."

"Haircuts?"

"They had awesome haircuts. Goatees, too. Really looked like villains, know what I mean?" Hawkeye gestured with a free hand. "They had style."

"Graviton wore a purple and white bodysuit."

"But he carried it off with style." Hawkeye snapped his fingers to illustrate his point. "When that man snapped his cape, the earth moved. Literally."

"Like Doctor Doom." Spider-Woman said, leaning back and laying her feet up on the console. "Man's got a certain...flair."

"He's a dictator." Moon Knight said. "He's responsible for several ethnic cleansings and at least four assassination attempts on our current President." He twisted in his seat and stared hard at Spider-Woman. "A man like that doesn't have flair. He just stinks."

"Really. Here I thought you and Doomsie would get on like two peas in a pod, Spector." Hawkeye said with a grin. "You know, being cape and cowl men and all." Moon Knight glared at him for a moment before turning back around. Hawkeye looked at Spider-Woman and chuckled.

"Guess not."

"Clint?" the Wasp said suddenly.

"Yeah, Jan?"

"Hollywood and Vine. She's got a bungalow in Beverly Hills."

"What the hell is a super-villain doing living in Beverly Hills?"

"Rent control?"

Talons extended and shredded through the canvas and Death Adder disappeared inside.

Darkhawk turned and flew upwards at a steep angle, cutting an awkward figure-eight as he maneuvered himself towards the tent. Iron Man directly behind him, Darkhawk burst through the hole Death Adder had torn and into the tent.

The smell hit him first, a thick rusty odor. Sour and metallic. Inside his head he saw the face of the bald man with the blazing eyes from his dream earlier in the day and heard a voice whisper, "Beware..." Behind him he heard Iron Man gasp.

"Dear God..."

In the harsh glow of the electric lanterns strung up throughout the tent, the interior looked like nothing so much as an abattoir. It had been a field hospital once, set up by the National Guard, staffed by the Red Cross. A place for people to come for succor.

Now it was a charnel house.

Bodies were strewn everywhere, whole and in pieces. Blood splashed the insides of the tent and a few of the lanterns. And silent, unmoving, staring at the two Avengers were the authors of such misery. Dozens of thin, filthy men and women crouched on beds or clung like insects to the tent posts, crimson eyes watching the Avengers with unblinking anticipation. Their skin was uniformly pale and an air of desperate hunger clung to them like a stench. In the blink of an eye they were moving and Darkhawk was dragged to the ground, hands clawing at him, teeth snapping. Iron Man dove toward him, trying to pull him out but only succeeding in getting himself pulled down along with his fellow Avenger.

Tony Stark repressed the urge to scream as he felt his armor begin to crumple beneath the fingers of the pale people.

Death Adder crouched atop a bed, tail curled around him as he watched the tide of undead fall upon the Avengers until even the golden armor of Iron Man was hidden beneath a pile of rotting flesh. He felt vaguely satisfied as he watched the feeding frenzy swallow up his opponents. Voelker had ordered him to divest the Avengers of as many of their members as possible and he had accomplished that easily enough. He could have killed them himself but this was somehow more appropriate considering the circumstances of his recent...resurrection.

"It's almost like a ballet isn't it?" a high-pitched voice said suddenly. Death Adder whirled, claws extended. A dwarf in a tidy black suit grinned at him from where he stood beside the bed. "Or is that a grand guignol? I get all those performance art thingies confused. Hello, Roland. Enjoying your second lease on life?"

Death Adder relaxed and turned back toward the action. The dwarf chuckled.

"Of course you are. I can tell." He fluttered a black envelope in Death Adder's face. "Aren't you glad you accepted my boss' offer? I can tell this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Mister Burroughs."

"Just beautiful."