MARVEL 2000 PRESENTS...

"THE DEEP"

Written by Dale W. Glaser

John Blaze had transformed into the Ghost Rider in the same instant the tidal wave had struck him. His demonic alter ego had no need to breathe, and his corona of hellfire burned brightly even submerged in the frigid saltwater. The shift had been instinctual, and proved to be fortunate, because instead of being knocked into relatively shallow surf and quickly returning to the surface, Ghost Rider found himself pulled deeper and deeper underwater. The same otherworldly force that had brought forth the wave somehow maintained its hold on Ghost Rider’s body, and dragged him malevolently and irresistibly out to sea.

He had no idea how many leagues he traveled or how many fathoms he sank, tumbling wildly through the watery depths in an unseen supernatural grip. The new aspects of being spiritually bonded to Noble Kale, rather than Zarathos, had yet to be fully assimilated in Blaze’s mind and still left him somewhat off-balance. For years, John Blaze’s transformation into Ghost Rider had been tantamount to surrender, sometimes willing, sometimes under duress, which led to a kind of imprisonment for Blaze, time spent helpless in a trap that was part mystical, part mental, part metaphysical. Under those conditions, as a captive observer, he had maintained a detached awareness of Ghost Rider’s actions, but virtually no control.

Now the manifestation was something Blaze actively participated in. He saw directly through the shadow-filled eye sockets of the Ghost Rider’s skull, although all he could see at the moment was a churning stream of bubbles on every side. He experienced the tactile sensations of the Ghost Rider’s inhuman flesh, which were currently overwhelmed with the chill and the mounting pressure of the surrounding seawater. The Ghost Rider’s body belonged to John Blaze, but newly so, which only compounded his disorientation as he flailed helplessly toward his destination.

Finally he came to rest, floating suspended in the middle of a jagged depression in the ocean floor. No sunlight could possibly reach so far beneath the surface of the ocean, but a lurid orange glare was cast upwards from deep fissures where geothermal heat was generated. Ghost Rider looked around the rocky, lifeless basin as noxious plumes floated upwards from the vents; except for the eerie feeling of near-weightlessness, it reminded him quite a bit of being in Hell.

A sinuous shadow began to emerge from below Ghost Rider’s slowly drifting feet. In a moment the massive shape was in front of him, dominating the murky field of his vision. A huge creature glowered down a long, thin snout full of sword-sized fangs. The monstrous head sat atop a powerful humanoid torso supporting bulky upper appendages and tapering to a legless, eel-like tail. Fins resembling blades jutted from the creature’s shoulders, forearms, and sides of its head. Its skin was mottled and maculate, blood red against pale pink.

“Spirit of Vengeance,” the gigantic demon spoke in distinctly menacing greeting. Blaze had no recollection of encountering the beast previously, only a deep certainty that this must be an Atlantean demon. Unable to hail the demon in return, Blaze said nothing, silently uncoiling the mystical chain of the Ghost Rider from its loops around his chest.

The demon was undeterred. “You have seen the last of the surface world, Spirit of Vengeance. Here you will meet your end … and your power will become mine!”

The Atlantean demon’s arm shot out, and Ghost Rider snapped his wrist at the same instant, intending to wrap his chain around the demon’s forearm and redirect the attack. But the unfamiliar environment worked against him, and the chain moved sluggishly through the resistance of the seawater. The demon, native to the aquatic realm, had no such difficulties. Its serrated claw swiped across Ghost Rider’s chest, rending leather and scoring the flesh beneath with white-hot pain.

The force of the blow propelled Ghost Rider backwards through the water. His headlong rush was stopped by a rocky outcropping. He laid against the bare wet stone, stunned, chain swaying limply in the deep underwater currents, as the Atlantean demon darted through the water toward him. Ghost Rider watched the demon approach, and John Blaze contemplated allowing the fiend to do whatever it wished. He could sacrifice his body, the vessel of the Spirit of Vengeance, and be free of Noble Kale’s curse. He could be free of all the attendant pain as well. He would lose his own life in the process, but it seemed such a small price to pay.

Deep in the back of his mind, in a place John Blaze would have recognized by the shadowy, gore-colored latticework he had spent so much time captive within, he heard an infernal howl of protest. Nevertheless, Blaze remained motionless against the undersea rock formation, with no attempt to ward off the Atlantean demon, and no attempt to flee. He simply waited.

Roxanne Simpson Blaze stared down into the remaining half-inch of tea at the bottom of her mug. She could not have been trying to read her fortune in tea leaves, because the liquid was a clear brown; it had been brewed using a simple Lipton tea bag which left no loose matter behind, augury-enabling or otherwise. Still, a yearning for answers was plain on her troubled face.

“Mo-o-o-o-om, I’m bo-o-o-o-ored,” Emma called out desultorily. She and her brother Craig were sprawled across the foot of one of the two queen-sized beds in the motel efficiency. The television was on, tuned to a local network affiliate that would show cartoons in about an hour but currently was broadcasting a syndicated small claims court program, Judge Joe or Judge Mary or something like that.

Before Roxanne could answer her daughter, the motel phone rang. Roxanne knew that she hadn’t given the room number to anyone, not even her old friend Joyce Ellimer who lived in town and was the biggest reason why Roxanne and her children had ended up in this particular motel. Still, due to force of habit at the very least, Roxanne picked up the handset after the third ring. “Hello?”

“Good afternoon, madam,” a smooth female voice came through the earpiece. “I’m calling you today to speak to you about self-defense. Have you ever considered how you would protect yourself and your loved ones should the need arise?”

Roxanne closed her eyes and slowly shook her head; if she had had the stomach for it, she would have chuckled ruefully. Her marriage was a shambles, her future was so uncertain it made her head hurt to think about it, and yet telemarketers were able to hound her all the way to Room 308 of the Blue Colony Inn. “Sorry, I don’t have time to take a karate class, I don’t like guns, and I don’t have the money for either even if …”

“That is not the kind of protection to which I am referring, Roxanne,” the woman on the other end of the phone cut her off, with a surprisingly powerful authority in her voice. “Martial arts and bullets would be of little use against the Ghost Rider.”

The last two words turned every drop of blood in Roxanne’s veins to ice. “Who … who is this?” she whispered shakily.

The woman on the line ignored the question. “Have you thought about what you will do when he comes for you, Roxanne? Because you must know that he will. He will come for his bride and his children and carry you all back to the heart of Hell itself, to make you his queen and make them his heirs.”

“No, please, no,” Roxanne begged, realizing that this was exactly what she had feared. It was why she was letting day after day of motel charges accumulate on her credit card, rather than looking for a new job and a new house to live in. The cheap polyester comforters and the television bolted to the bureau and the yellow-stained ceiling all created the impression that she and Emma and Craig were on the run, putting an unbridgeable distance between themselves and the demon that John had become, even when they were at rest. But to put down new roots would require inhabiting a place that the Ghost Rider could find.

“The only thing that can save you now is magic,” the strident female voice insisted. “You know this in your heart, even if you deny the natural talent for the arcane which you possess. You still remember the day that you banished Mephisto at what should have been his moment of triumph over Blaze, and that with only a few grains of knowledge gained from your cursory readings of Blaze’s books.”

Roxanne said nothing, tucking the mouthpiece under her chin so as not to be betrayed by her own heavy breathing. But she remembered.

“I can help you, Roxanne,” the woman on the phone assured her. “I can teach you magicks that are superior to the rage of hellfire. Magicks that will give you the strength to spurn the Ghost Rider and thwart his will. I can help you … if you will help me in return.”

“How…?” Roxanne managed.

“Do not decide too quickly, my child. I shall call again,” the voice informed her. The line went dead.

Roxanne held the handset to her ear for a few moments more, then realized the woman was truly gone and hung up the phone. During the course of the conversation she had turned her back on the children; she pivoted again and was relieved to see they were ignoring her. They stared at a McDonald’s commercial and idly kicked at each other disinterestedly.

“Craig? Emma?” Roxanne smiled as bravely as she could. “How’d you like to stay at Aunt Joyce’s house for a while?”

Ghost Rider continued to recline against the jagged rim of the deep ocean depression even as the Atlantean demon swept toward him and sunk its calcified claws into his body, pinning him to the slick rock. One of the pincers drove through Ghost Rider’s left shoulder, while the other skewered his right side; small, spectral flames rose from the wounds and licked at the claws. The demon laid its snout across Ghost Rider’s right shoulder and made a sound like a triumphant but soulless cackle.

“I expected more from you, Spirit of Vengeance,” the Atlantean fiend snarled. “Perhaps I will need more than your power alone to gird myself for the coming tribulations, if you fall before me so easily.”

“Tribulations…?” Ghost Rider repeated, his eldritch-tinged voice muted by the weight of the surrounding seawater.

The Atlantean demon ignored him. “Then again,” it growled mockingly, “if all surface-dwellers succumb as easily as you, then my victory is already assured.” The spiky grip of each claw tightened around Ghost Rider’s flesh and scraped his bones. Then the Atlantean demon whirled abruptly and tossed its prey down into the central depths of the underwater depression. Ghost Rider sank helplessly, inert as a piece of jetsam.

The gloom deepened, interrupted only by weak slashes of light from the thermal vents. Ghost Rider struck the bottom of the basin, crushing long-abandoned brittle shells beneath his back. He felt, rather than saw, the demon pursuing him, surging sharklike through the water. Ghost Rider, wounded and uncaring and enshrouded by sulphurous ribbons arising from cracks in the ocean floor, awaited his fate.

It had to end somehow, John Blaze thought, and maybe this was the way it was always meant to end. But on the heels of that notion, Blaze sensed a growing opposition, a direct challenge. And the objection did not come from his ancestor, from the Spirit of Vengeance, or from any force or entity outside of his own soul. The curse of the Ghost Rider would have to end, but not like this. Not passively, not as a victim, and certainly not as subsistence for an aquatic demon that resembled some kind of mad prehistoric cuttlefish.

Ghost Rider rose to his feet, clenching one fist around his chain, and held out his free hand. Mystical fire the deep red color of superheated iron billowed from his fingertips and coalesced amidst the frigid water in the shape of a motorcycle. Ghost Rider mounted the hellish bike and reared back in its seat, pulling the fiery front wheel off the surf-smoothed stone. On a harsh geyser of steam, Ghost Rider shot up towards the diving Atlantean demon, yellow flames trailing backwards from his skull.

Just before the two figures closed on one another, Ghost Rider threw himself over the handlebars of his flaming two-wheeled steed, stretching his steel chain taut from one fist to the other. The motorcycle continued barreling through the murky water and exploded against the underbelly of the Atlantean demon. At the same time, Ghost Rider sailed over the top of the demon’s head, while looping the chain under the demon’s narrow jawbone. Ghost Rider jackknifed in the water, twisting his body and pulling the chain tight around the Atlantean fiend’s neck. The demon thrashed and struck at the steel links with its claws, but the chain was strong. The Spirit of Vengeance was stronger still.

The struggle continued for several minutes, but the Ghost Rider’s chain never slackened against the Atlantean demon’s flesh. The metal seared the creature’s mottled skin, and tendrils of blackness spread out across the pink and red, until finally the demon hung limply in the loop of chain. Ghost Rider snapped the length of fetter to the side and allowed his foe to sink away from him. Then he reconstituted his flaming motorcycle and began his ascent to the ocean’s surface.

John Blaze crossed the Atlantic City motel parking lot to his motorcycle, his own, real, chrome and steel and leather cycle, and wearily settled into the seat. He kicked the engine to life and slowly rolled out onto the street.

Blaze admitted to himself, with much less rage than he would have when he was a younger man, that being bonded to the Ghost Rider did have some advantages. It was still unquestionably a curse, at the end of the day, and one he knew he would need to rid himself of if he were ever to reclaim his family and the life he wanted. He would have to rid himself of it to stay sane. But for as long as he was forced to bear it, he could actually use it to his advantage. He could go places no one else could go. He could do things no one else could do. He could survive to see tomorrow under circumstances that would kill anyone else.

Maybe that, Blaze realized, was why he had agreed to open himself to Noble Kale. Not to save the Spirit of Vengeance from blinking out of existence, but to take hold of something for himself. Dan Ketch, his own brother, was languishing on some abstract plane, and to return from there and be cured of his flesh-hunger Dan would need someone to take extraordinary measures. Dan would need the assistance of someone powerful. And John Blaze undeniably had power now.

It might be a fool’s quest to try to channel the will of the Ghost Rider toward rescuing Dan Ketch. But it might also be a path toward redemption.

Blaze rode out of town.