[Reviews - 92]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story |
Printer Chapter or Story |
ePub eBook Chapter or Story |

Has been viewed 1352 times

- Text Size +




“That clock ain’t goin’ anywhere, ‘Elf. Ya don’t hafta keep starin’ at it.”

“It’s been too long,” Kurt insisted, pacing across the kitchen for the third time. “No calls since they landed in Deerfield. No word from the Prydes when we called, except that the child’s father shouted bloody murder in my ears, frantic over his daughter’s whereabouts!”

“Tisn’t like my Charley, aye. I agree wi’ ye, lad,” Moira declared sternly as she put away the rest of the clean dishes. “Matter o’ fact, I kinna feel Charley at all. He’s in range, but just barely.”

“Within range?” John inquired. “Whaddya mean? Like, by radio communication?”

“Like up in here,” she gestured, tapping her forehead with her finger. “I’ve a bond wi’ Charley. I’ve known him for over a decade, an’ we’ve been linked this whole time. I take care of Charley’s affairs, but in the early days of ‘im receiving his injury, I took care of ‘im. He still held pieces of me heart, even after he broke it. That was why I came tae live here in Westchester. There was nothing left in Kinross for me except me family estate.” Low footsteps approached the kitchen from the rear hallway and stopped short of the door. “Real love does na’ die, it merely changes over time. Loved him when I was nae but a wee lassie still in school.”

“High school?” Kurt mused.

“Oxford,” she replied simply. John choked on a sip of Coke. She clapped him soundly on the back.

“Dinna inhale it, lad! And dinna be so bluidy shocked!”

“*KOFF* Why the friggin’ *KOFF* hell didja settle for workin’ as a housekeeper with that kinda schoolin’ under yer belt?” he sputtered.

“Call me a Jane of all trades,” she sniffed as he wiped his eyes. “I remained close tae me family estate so I could come back an’ see tae the needs of the village as a family doctor. But it was also the perfect place tae build a facility wi’ a fully equipped lab so I could continue me research.”

“What kind of research?” Kurt sat down at the pine table and leaned forward on his elbows, tail flicking back and forth.

“Nuclear and genetic.” Just as she finished, Sean entered the kitchen, nodding at everyone with hooded eyes.

“Er…h’lo, Moira. Lads,” he announced as he opened the refrigerator.

“Sean,” she greeted. “What’ve ye been up tae, laddie?”

“Danger Room. An’ wonderin’ if the others had been in touch yet?” He pulled out the milk jug and fetched a glass from the cupboard. Moira’s eyes followed his movements.

“They haven’t.” John’s mouth was a thin line; his sigh was deep, expanding and contracting his massive chest. Sean paused in taking a gulp of his drink.

“They haven’t? As in they have na’ called yet? Even tae tell us they arrived?” Unease prickled under his skin.

“Nay, Sean.” Moira tugged at her hair, a nervous gesture he’d grown familiar with from their more frequent talks. She was growing on him.

But the day’s revelations, coming from her own lips, confused him.

They heard the phone in the study ring down the hall, and all of them jumped until they heard Jean’s smooth, clear voice picking it up. They waited in anticipation as she hung up two minutes later. Her face was flushed, red hair flying as she hurried into the kitchen.

“The Professor, Logan, Pete and Ororo are in trouble! They made it to the Prydes’ house and took Kitty out and then got attacked, right out in the open!” Moira went pale.

“Bluidy hell,” she swore breathlessly, sitting down before she could collapse. Charley!

“S’okay, colleen,” Sean murmured soothingly. Despite his misgivings from what he overheard, he covered her back, squeezing her shoulder and lending her strength. He was warm, solid and reassuring. “Who was on the phone, lass?”

“Kitty,” she answered, looking as surprised as the rest of them felt. “The girl they went out to meet. She’s terrified, hysterical and all alone.”

“Alone!” John railed. “What happened to ‘em?”

“They were taken away. Wasn’t a trace left of them at the café where they were attacked, because the place went up in flames. Fire marshals are saying it was a gas leak, that’s what Kitty told me.”

“Is the fraulein all right?” Kurt fretted.

“She wasn’t hurt, just scared out of her wits. She wasn’t clear on how she got out of there. Just said that she fell through a window!”

“Ach!”

“Poor wee lass,” Moira crooned. “That’s it, then. Off wi’ ye,” she clucked, nodding at all of them. “I’ll hold down the fort. Did the lassie tell ye where she was?”

“More or less. We can use the Blackbird’s GPS to get a lock on where she is,” Jean decided. “So that’s it. Let’s go.”

John, Sean, Jean and Kurt adjourned to the locker room to suit up and ran into Scott en route.

“Where’s the fire? Where are you off to?” he inquired, looking concerned when he saw the firm set of Jean’s jaw. She gripped his hands and kissed him in greeting.

“Scott, we need to do a recon for the Professor.”

“What happened?” His brows drew together over his glasses. Jean winced over the panic that swept through his thoughts.

“They were ambushed,” she explained. “We just saw the news feed of an explosion at a restaurant in Deerfield. That’s where Ororo and the others went to meet the Pryde girl. The broadcast was vague as to what happened.”

“Things are always vague when anyone says they saw a mutant. Or the X-Men. This isn’t good,” he grumbled, then sighed. “Let’s go.”

“What have you been doing this afternoon?”

“Looking at the database update Charles made to Cerebro. He found another mutant.” Jean was intrigued despite their circumstances.

“Who?”

“A young woman named Alison Blaire.”

“Wonder what this one does,” John mused, “and if she’s single?”

“Gads, boyo, ye have a one-track mind,” Sean tsked, clapping him hard enough on the back to make him grunt. Kurt shook his head.

“I wonder what we’re up against?” Jean heartily wished Lorna and Alex were still available to lend them more muscle.

“Someone with enough fire power and resources to take out four mutants. That’s all we need to know. Stay on your toes, people.”

Jean was uneasy the entire flight to Deerfield; they were dismayed to learn that Kitty’s mutant signature tracked down on the mini-Cerebro unit had moved that far.

What on earth had happened for her to have moved so far away from home, so fast?


~0~


Holy cripes. HOLY cripes. I’m in such deep doo-doo. Kitty shivered in the dark and listened to the unfamiliar voices over her pounding heart. Her skin was clammy and chilled from the transition to hot and sultry to drafty and air-conditioned.

Never in a million years did she ever think she’d ride in a hover car. Terror killed excitement, and she cowered in the very back of the hatch.

Ororo, Logan and Piotr were bound in odd-looking metal restraints that covered their hands completely, as opposed to simple wrist shackles. Each of them lay unconscious in separate cages like captured animals, and the sight made Kitty feel sick. The Professor was similarly bound, but they left him in his wheelchair, using a special harness to anchor it in place. Each of them wore a collar that dampened their powers by disrupting the mind’s signals to their central nervous system. Kitty wanted to do anything, make a sound, shake them, anything to make them wake up. She was petrified, for them, and for herself.

Ororo’s pallor wasn’t good and she had bruises that made Kitty wince. She was so nice to me.

Kitty had to help them. But how?


~0~

“That’s three games in a row. Didn’t ya eat yer Wheaties this morning, kid?” Matt looked down in surprise at Mr. Howlett’s cards. Straight flush. Again. Damn. He was being hustled!

“All right. Deal’s a deal.”

“Think yer mom could add a few walnuts to the next batch?”

“In a heartbeat. She’s also got another Steven King book she just finished that she’s bringing this weekend.” It was shameful. Matt’s mother was spoiling Logan as much as Matt was, dropping in for occasional visits and bringing him goodies when she noticed how much her son looked forward to going to work every day. Nurse Kinney still warned him once in a while about not being too partial to one resident over the others, but she was still pleased that Mr. Howlett was enjoying better comfort and pain control since the visits began.

“Hot dog,” he chuckled as he gathered up the cards and shuffled them aqain. When Matt won “ if Logan would let him win “ he had to take his meds without complaint and finish his dinner. He was in fine form, occasionally winking at a couple of female residents that passed through the recreation room. Even the less lucid ones smiled back, dimpling prettily and giving him a swat. Matt was in the presence of the master.

“I’m not gonna sleep tonight until you tell me what happened when Kitty found you.”

“Hmm?”

“You said Kitty stowed away in that weird hover car to follow you…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Tryin’ ta remember where I left off…man. That was a mess. Bein’ an X-Man was hard enough when ya had ta protect civilians from gettin’ hurt in the line of fire, bub, but this was different. In a sense, we had ta protect one of our own. Pryde was already provin’ ta be just that. Her parents trusted us with her, an’ look what happened.” Logan licked his thumb and deftly dealt out the red Bicycle cards like a shark, completing the image with his fanged grin. “Thank God Kitten was a survivor. To roll with us, she needed ta be.”


~0~

Logan’s body twitched as his body slowly regained its focus, but not its equilibrium. Brief clues came to him one at a time. He was in the dark. He was on a cold floor.

He couldn’t move his hands.

“Fuck,” he moaned. “Anyone…get the number of that truck?” His voice sounded groggy and drugged, and he tried to remember what he was hit with that left him so torn up. Must’ve been pretty good… “Ow.”

His vision was still blurred as he cracked open his eyes, but decided against it when the room rocked around him, threatening nausea and a wicked headache. Logan let his nose do the talking for what he needed to know.

Metal. A lot of it. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was in a cage; he couldn’t explain it, but he felt confined. And it wouldn’t be the first time, he sneered. Great. Friggin’ great.

Blood. Just a bit, but it unnerved him. Logan guessed that most of it was his.

‘Ro. Wait…’Ro? Her warm, earthy scent was distinctive and close by. Logan could hear her pulse, but it was weak.

Logan groaned again, this time in concern, and he attempted to roll onto his side. The room continued to spin, and his head felt like someone clamped it in a vise, but he had to confirm it for himself that she was there. And that she was whole.

If not, he had asses to kick.

Kitty? Dimly he caught the hint of ice cream and Love’s Baby Soft deodorant, coming from about thirty feet away. Logan stiffened, fuming. If the kid’s parents didn’t ground her, then damn it, he would.

“Welcome to Hell,” a serene voice purred with rounded vowels. “I hope you’re comfortable.

That voice. That scent. The woman’s perfume was overwhelmingly feminine and expensive. Her voice was a bright, lilting soprano and too damned chipper for Logan’s taste.

“The media overestimated what you people can do,” Emma continued, tsking. “You almost made this too easy, you know. You should be ashamed of yourself, Charles.” Kitty smothered a gasp of relief when she saw the Professor stirring slightly. His eyes looked bruised and disoriented, but he was otherwise unharmed. He focused on Emma but his perceptions were still dim, hampered even further by the power dampening collar. “Don’t try to read my thoughts; it’s no use, old man.”

“What do you want with us?”

“The brat. First come, first served, Xavier. The Pryde girl belongs at my academy. She has Hellfire Club novitiate written all over her.” Charles looked taken aback.

“I’d heard rumors,” Charles replied uneasily. Her laugh was full-bodied as she reached into a tiny silver case. Emma extracted a cigarette and a slim black holder and inserted it into the end. Logan smelled the smoke from her match as it flickered in the shadows. She greedily inhaled the smoke and released it in swirling puffs.

“Not rumors. Fact. You no more think we’re ‘rumored’ than you believe mutants with powers are a figment of your imagination, Charles.” She slowly stalked out from the dark and flicked a switch on a nearby console. One by one, several rows of fluorescent light bars across the ceiling lit the room, bathing it in a bright yellow glow that hurt Logan’s eyes once he opened them.

Ororo protested just as much with a groan that made him wince. He finally had a good, long look at their captor. If he wasn’t so pissed off, he would’ve laughed…then drooled.

Hunger for power, greed and avarice never came in a prettier package than Emma Frost. It was the same broad from the street they passed on their way to the café, but she left the package unwrapped.

Her sedate blond pageboy was blown out and tumbled over her shoulders in careless waves, draping seductively over her eye. Her lips were glossed candy apple red, marred only by her smirk. If her cashmere dress and jacket puzzled any of them before, her current outfit was an even greater contradiction.

Lingerie. She wore white leather and satin like a second skin. Lush, full breasts nearly spilled free of a white bustier laced so tightly she shouldn’t have been able to breathe. Tiny, white leather bikini briefs revealed flaring hips and cupped her sex. Flamboyant boots reached up over her knees and added inches to her height, the stiletto heels looking sharp enough to put Logan’s eye out.

She crowned her look with a cape. Vintage and expensive, trimmed with a fur collar and a sleek satin lining. She wore a white satin choker around her neck with a silver cameo, engraved with the insignia of a trident.

“Hey, Hot Pants, do Prince and Apollonia know ya’ve been raidin’ their closets?”

“Insolent pissant,” rumbled a second voice from the shadows. His heavy musk reached Logan’s nostrils, unfortunately blocking the hint of fresh air that swept inside as he entered the chamber. “You will show the White Queen respect.”

“Uh-uh. I’m gonna show ya yer liver once I get outta these,” he argued gruffly, baring his sharp canines.

“Logan,” Ororo moaned weakly. Relief choked him at the sound of her voice.

“Isn’t that sweet?” Emma crooned. “It must flatter you, Wolverine, to hear your name on a woman’s lips the moment she wakes up.”

“Especially such a comely creature as you, Storm,” her companion agreed. He joined Emma and cupped her shoulder in his beefy hand, nuzzling her temple. Her smile was satisfied and indulgent.

“If I didn’t find her just as delicious, I might be jealous, my love,” Emma mused, “but just look at her.” She licked her lips. Ororo shot her a look of disgust.

“Leave her the fuck alone!”

“When I’m finished playing with her. I always put away my toys,” Emma shrugged. “But for now, dear Wolverine, it’s lights out.”

Logan’s world was turned inside-out as she struck him with a mind-searing bolt of telepathic energy, the strongest weapon in Emma’s arsenal, barring her looks. Logan struggled to hold on, but his nervous system felt like it was on fire. The power of Emma’s thoughts wasn’t the benign probe of Charles’; her methods were invasive and thorough, devoid of regard for its subject. For once in more years than he could count back, Logan was a victim.

The last thought that escaped him before he drowned in oblivion was that he wasn’t helpless. He took the sound of Ororo’s voice calling to him with him.

“You witch!” Ororo hissed. She attempted to expand her awareness of their surroundings. She couldn’t feel the atmosphere pulling at her or see the currents and waves of energy in the air. She felt the cold, dull thrum of metal around her neck and realized it was the culprit.

“Don’t bother, sweetling,” Emma assured her simply, taking another puff and blowing it out through pursed lips. “It’s a waste of time you can’t afford. We want the child, and you X-Men got in the way. Shaw and I plan to curb you of that nasty habit post-haste.”

“Now…who’s wasting time?” Ororo taunted back, tasting a hint of blood inside her lower lip. Sebastian Shaw smiled broadly, not unlike a crocodile.

He was just as decadently attired as Emma, albeit with more fabric. Sable brown hair was clubbed back from his face and tied with a black satin ribbon. He wore a Victorian waistcoat and vest with breeches, hose and buckled shoes, all in hues of black and gray. He was massively built, easily as tall and broad as John. Ororo began to heartily regret that he hadn’t accompanied them, after all.

It didn’t matter. They’d taken down the Wolverine. They still would have been caught by surprise, and for the moment, outmatched.

“We’ve been watching you. You’re quite entertaining, and I’m not just talking about the news feeds from the media.” She turned to Charles then. “We found Kitty at the same moment, the same way you did, Charles. Through Cerebro.” His expression mixed horror and outrage.

“No one can use it but me!”

“Ah, but we can plant a bug and transmit the feed to our own database,” Emma chided playfully. She sauntered smoothly toward him like a coquette, idly tapping her chin with one gloved finger. His skin crawled at her touch as she trailed it along his cheek, making him curse his helplessness, his shortsightedness.

“Man can’t rely solely on machines, Xavier,” Shaw mused. “He must rely on himself.” He gave Ororo and her other companions an appraising look. “They’re hardly more than children, man. You’re richer than Croesus, and you send children to fight for your…whatever it is you believe in.”

“They help people, they fight for the helpless!” Charles sputtered, jerking his head back from Emma’s offensive touch, even though she was leaning her hip against the armrest of his wheelchair, just grazing his hand.

Get your cooties away from him! Emma caught Ororo’s errant thought and whipped around to face her.

“Well! It’s like that, eh, weather-witch?” she teased. Ororo’s eyes were sparking with indignant rage.

“How could you treat him like that? You want respect, then show it where it’s due.” Emma abandoned the Professor and strolled back toward the containment cell. Ororo rolled to a sitting position, despite how it wrenched her shoulder, but it was more comfortable than lying on cold concrete.

“Don’t make me laugh,” she tsked with a roll of her eyes. “The Professor’s wasted your time and your potential, Storm; you know it as well as I do. I’ve seen inside your mind,” Emma informed her, and her voice grew silky, the way one would talk to a lover. She wrapped her fists around the bars and leaned against them, letting them press her breasts until they bulged up from the corset, framed by cold metal. Emma cocked her head and continued. “I know you tried to keep me out. You’re trying now. I’m flattered that you think me enough of a threat. It moves me.”

“When you’re on the other end of a tornado once I get free, then you can tell me how much I’ve moved you,” Ororo suggested helpfully.

“We need to work on your subtlety,” Emma sniffed.

“You’ll have adequate time, darling,” Shaw reminded her. “She’s not going anywhere.”

“True, true,” she murmured thoughtfully. Her smile was serpentine with her next words. “You like the wild man. I’m impressed. I figured you for being attracted for someone more bookish, like your friend Mr. Summers.” She licked her lips. “He can certainly do better than that horrid Jean. Or ‘Marvel Girl,’ for God’s sake. What was she thinking?” Shaw suppressed a chuckle.

“White Queen?” Ororo offered, cocking one slanted brow. Emma’s smile slipped.

“Your strong and silent friend here is young, malleable and easily trained,” Emma pointed out, nodding to Piotr. He was blessedly unconscious and more bruised than the rest of them, since Emma’s drones had attacked him the most vigorously, compensating for his immense strength. “I don’t think you could handle a ruffian like our friend here.”

“Logan is the friend of very few people, Ms. Frost,” Charles said softly. “Your first mistake is thinking you can ‘handle’ him, as you so charmingly put it.”

“Your mistake is thinking that I can’t, and it will be costly, Charles.”

“So you want the girl. Why take us captive?”

“Not just captive. Hostage. I know your other students will come running once they see the news of what happened downtown. I intend to use them as bargaining chips to recruit all of them.”

“Recruit?” Charles was incredulous.

“The Hellfire Club employs technology as well as mutant fire power to further its own ends. The Massachusetts Academy offers special opportunities for recruitment into our organization to a select few students every year. Mutant students, like our young Miss Pryde. They go on to run corporations, expand our business overseas, run our shipping lines, weapons contracts…”

“And become assassins,” Charles interrupted. Emma sighed, and with a flourish, she attacked his mind again, assaulting him with the memory of how he lost the use of his legs, magnifying his body’s recollection of the pain ten fold.

“We call them independent contractors,” she corrected him. “It’s not polite to cut in when people are talking, Charles.”

“I told you to leave him alone!” Ororo was up like a shot, staggering to her feet.

“Psh,” Emma snorted. “What are you going to do?” Emma continued to lean in against the bars, turning her mouth into a small moue.

BONG! Ororo’s head already throbbed, but the look of shock, followed by an explosion of pain on Emma’s face as she rammed it against the portion of her forehead that she could reach through the bars was worth it. Oh, was it worth it.

That would teach her to run on at the mouth instead of keeping her eye on her Ororo’s thoughts, or her movements.

Shaw wasn’t amused. Before Ororo could reel in her own pain and back away, Shaw reached into her cage, snapping his hand around her jugular.

“No one lays a hand on my Queen,” he admonished, his voice low and dark, “and expects to keep it.”

“Shaw’s gift is enhanced strength. Feel free to offer him the same treatment you gave me, Ororo.”

“Now, Emma,” he interjected. “Mustn’t give away too much, too soon, my sweet.”

“You’re an open book, Sebastian,” she replied as she stubbed out her cigarette. “And so are you, Storm, despite the psychic shields your dear Professor attempted to help you build. Unlike your friend Wolverine, whose thoughts are so jumbled I nearly got lost in the static and noise. The man’s dark, Ororo. So deep and dark, like chocolate,” Emma sighed, followed by a low “mmmmmmm” of approval.

“Bitch,” Ororo rasped around Shaw’s snug grip.

“Put her down, my love.” He flung her back with a thud. “Someone’s still cranky and needs her beauty sleep. Take a nap, Ororo.” She no sooner gulped in much needed oxygen than her thoughts dissolved into the ether. Ororo’s soft cry was full of denial as she collapsed.

“Damn you,” Charles cried. “You’re exactly the reason why baseline humans despise us!”

“Who needs love when they can fear you? Homo sapiens can hate us from down on their knees.”

Emma was so intent on Charles’ torture that she didn’t pick up the trace of frantic prayers from the darkest, tiniest corner of the chamber. Kitty’s heart hammered in her chest.

She bided her time and waited, listening to their captors and grateful to the bone that her mother and father didn’t make a hasty decision about her enrollment to that school. Yet.

Cripes. Mom and Dad! What if Emma tried to coerce her parents into doing what she wanted? She was a telepath, and she knew where Kitty lived, now!

Kitty had to act, and she had to act now.

Somehow.


~0~


“Who the heck was Apollonia?”

“Way before yer time, kid. Way before yer time. Ya gonna ante up or not?” Logan accused.


~0~


It felt like forever before Shaw and Emma finally took their leave, following their information technician’s request to review more of the data pulled from Cerebro. Charles was once again sedated, and Kitty cursed Emma again for mistreating someone as kind as the Professor had been.

Kitty shoved her fear down as far as it would go before venturing a few hesitant steps from her corner. Emma had thoughtfully turned down most of the lights in the suite; maybe she was trying to conserve energy, Kitty fumed.

She approached Ororo’s cell first. It chilled her to see Ororo confined in something so cold and uncomfortable. “Ororo,” she whispered. “Psst…psst…Ororo!”

She lay unresponsive except for a faint twitch of her fingers. Kitty grew braver.

“Ororo! Wake up, quick!”

“Uuunnnggghh…”

“Please wake up. I need you,” Kitty pleaded. She could almost reach her.

Ororo felt a tug on one of her fingers and instinctively tried to bat it away, then grabbed the hand instead. “Leggo,” she warned briefly. Her tongue felt thick and she hated the slur that came out.

“Not until you wake up. If you don’t, that witch is gonna come after me, she’ll hurt you, and then she’ll come after my parents if they don’t send me to that icky school. I hate her! She’s mean and she wears her underwear on the outside!”

“Goddess…stop yelling at me, child.”

“M’not,” Kitty protested.

“Head…hurts,” Ororo complained. She squinted up at Kitty, her beautiful eyes full of pain. “Hullo, Kitten,” she said fondly.

“Hi,” she blurted. “You look awful.”

“I feel awful. Kitty,” she remembered, “you shouldn’t be here.”

“I know! I wanna help you get outta here!” she whispered urgently. “How do I get you out of this thing?”

“I’m all out of ideas. I can’t even move my hands. If I could, I might be able to open the lock.”

“How?”

“Lockpicks. But they took them from me.” It was only then that Kitty noticed Ororo wasn’t wearing the sedate, stylish black dress she had on before; she was clad only in her underwear, stripped of all accessories and her shoes. Kitty didn’t have to guess how violated she had to feel, but Ororo was still a lot calmer than she was. “Kitten…I need you to remember something.”

“This isn’t the time to give me a pep talk,” Kitty scolded.

“No, Kitty! I mean I have something for you to memorize,” Ororo snapped. “I’m going to tell you a phone number, and I want you to use it to call the school. Ask for Jean or Scott.” Ororo spoke the number slowly at first, then repeated it more quickly twice.

“I’ve got a photographic memory,” Kitty assured her, repeating the number back to herself. “Once I get out, I can remember which building it was that I left. And I can come back for you…”

“Look! It’s the brat!” Shaw boasted. “Emma, she’s saved us the trouble of finding her, after all.” Kitty’s stomach lurched and knotted into a tight ball.

“Kitten! GET OUT, NOW!” Ororo shouted. “Find Jean! Quick! They’ll hurt you if you stay!”

“I won’t leave you,” she wailed, clinging to Ororo’s limp hand. Ororo squeezed her fingers.

“I’ll be fine.”

“No, you won’t!” she sobbed.

“GO!” Kitty yelped and ran, with the Hellfire operatives hot on her heels. Kitty took a hope-to-heaven leap and concentrated.

She passed without a sound through the floor.

“Fuck!” cried one of Emma’s pawns.

“So help me,” Emma muttered, cradling her temple in annoyance, “I hate teenagers.” She gestured to her operatives. “Go. Bring her back alive. How you do it, I don’t care.”


~0~

Her lungs felt like they were about to burst. Kitty’s shoes weren’t made for a running fight, and she was running out of alleys to duck into. Her cheek burned from where she scraped it, and her arm was beginning to throb.

They were gaining on her. Kitty sent up a silent prayer to whoever was listening and continued to phase, but it was weakening her.


~0~

“Still don’t get why ya agreed ta go on this wild goose chase ta find this Blaire chick,” John grumbled. Scott diverted them to Manhattan, where they found the other mutant signature. Kurt sighed.

“Because I trust his instincts. And he made a point. Sean’s at the school as backup to protect Moira.” John snorted. “Scott and Jean are looking for the girl, which might be for the best. The young fraulein might not be ready for me quite yet, in all of my natural glory,” Kurt mused.

“Eh. I’m gettin’ used ta ya, Elf.” John clapped him on the back, knocking a low “ooph!” from his lips.

“So we find Alison and introduce ourselves. And we put my inducer to the test.”

“But why a nightclub?”

“Don’t listen to popular music, John?”

“Not much. Give me Johnny Mathis or Smokey Robinson any day over the crap the young kids are listening to lately.” John made a sour face.

“The young kids know her as Dazzler,” Kurt explained as they reached the front door of a nondescript old theater.

“Wait…THAT Dazzler?”

“Hold still.” Kurt depressed the button of his inducer, and they were briefly enveloped in a bright light that resembled a camera flash. Kurt’s blue fur and yellow eyes disappeared, leaving behind fair skin, short and wavy black hair and a mustache. His features were nearly the same, minus the fangs, giving John an idea of what he might have looked like had he not been born a mutant.

“I don’t listen to much current crap, but her I’ve seen!” John exclaimed. “She stopped that bank robbery on Fifth and Salem Street last week!”

“Mm-hm,” Kurt acknowledged.

“She’s HOT!”

“Ja vohl,” he agreed again.

“Why didn’tcha say anything before?”

“All you wanted to know before was if she was single. This is still business,” he added. “But for the record, the tabloids say she IS single.”

“So what, are we just askin’ her if she wants ta sign up fer the school?”

“No. We’re making her a recruitment offer, like the Professor did for us. Scott and Jean are doing some surveillance of the café. They found bodies. Two of them were wearing special armor manufactured by Shaw Industries.”

“Okay. We know where they got their suits…which might be a whole lot sharper than the one ya gave me,” John muttered, looking down at his clubbing outfit that Kurt created for him. “Geez…”

“It’s stunning,” Kurt assured him.

“Yer buyin’ me beer.”

“Of course.”

“LOTS of beer.”

“Chin up. Look lively, Proudstar. Smile!” Kurt waved to two young women who eyed both men appreciatively.

“This place is a dump,” he complained back as he scanned the room. “Phew!” he grimaced as they waded through fetid perfume and the occasional tequila burp. The club was dark and poorly lit, having the nerve to feature a disco ball and two strobe lights flanking the tiny dance floor. “I don’t see her ““

“How’re y’all doin’ tonight?” a man crowed into his mike, sporting teen idol spiked hair and a logo tee shirt. “Give it up for …DAZZLERRRRRR!!!!” The crowd gave up a roar of applause, clapping and whistling loudly, and suddenly the room exploded in light.

“Jesus, Joseph and Mary!” John swore, holding his hand up to shield his eyes. “What the heck is that?”

“That, my friend, is our new recruit. If she says yes,” Kurt nodded to the slender figure standing within the glowing nexus.

She was stunning. Both men grinned at the spectacle.

Alison Blaire was born for show business. She sauntered, danced and stoked the crowd, singing her heart out, even if it was the kind of industrial rock music neither man cared for. But she made it work.

She was petite for a rock legend, and for a crimefighter. Kurt wagered that she didn’t stand any taller than five-three or “four in her flat feet, and she was currently teetering on chunky heels. Her body was lithe and toned, built like someone who lived in the dance studio and vacationed at the gym. Her stage costume consisted of silver lame pants and a tiny white halter top, and her strawberry blonde hair rippled down her back.

“Nice. She’s havin’ a great time up there, and ya wanna talk her into goin’ ta look for a mutant kid who just missed being blown up at an ice cream shop. Bet she can’t wait ta get on board for that plan.”

“She’s a mutant,” Kurt mentioned casually. “She’ll understand why we need her, if nothing else.”

However, before either of them could react, the ceiling collapsed.





You must login () to review.