Eloi
11 and 12
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Eloi Chapter Eleven
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta…
Graywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting.
you? ProPhile: *gloke *
Readers/Reviewers: Thank you so much for reading and reviewing as you
can!
“What the
FUCK do you think you’re doing?”
“Watching…
what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Trying to
get out of the way, you dumb piece of shit!”
Pietro
stopped in his tracks, the sudden shift from full speed to dead halt making him
skid slightly on his heels. The voices
were coming from the thick shrubbery lining the walk to the front of his father’s
mansion-cum-base of operations, voices he did not recognize and rightly figured
did not belong there. He willed himself to
walk at a normal pace towards the voices.
He could see the tiny red car Tarot had co-opted as her own parked just
at the bend of the gravel drive, and beyond it the black sedan Sabretooth chauffeured
Magneto in. _Great.
could hear the shrubs rustling and it struck him how like a bad movie it
was. _The stalker waits in the hawthorn,
waiting for the hapless victim to get within reach, then pounces, dragging the
sap into the shadows to do whatever sociopaths do…
heard the rustling stop as he drew even with the particular shrub and he
tensed, knowing it was coming. He slowed
his pace ever so slightly, almost daring them to do it, to leap out and attack
him at his own home, in front of a houseful of mutants who could kill them a
thousand times over. _Or at least a dozen, _ he amended.
laden with what looked like a bundle of fabric. “Help me!”
He hissed a
curse under his breath. “With what?” he
called, turning from the walkway reluctantly and with great effort did not look
over his shoulder at the shrubs. As he
neared Tarot, he realized the bundle was struggling.
“It’s a
baby, you twit,” she sighed. “He won’t
stay still! Take him, would you?” She handed the infant off without further
adieu, frowning. “What’s wrong?
ferret-like.” Her mild accent made the
words sound less insulting but Pietro still glowered.
He chose to
ignore the burgeoning argument and instead, keeping his voice pitched low,
said, “There’s someone hiding by the walk.”
The baby in his arms chose that moment to emit an ear-piercing wail, the
lusty cry seeming to split the heavens themselves with it’s
sheer volume. Pietro cried out sharply,
clutching the bundle tightly in his arms rather than dropping it, as was his
first inclination. Tarot’s hands flew to
her ears and she cursed fluently in French and English.
“Get him to
the car! Now!”
“But…”
run to the red convertible, her keys already in her hand.
Pietro
stared for just a brief moment then shook himself into action.
himself into motion. He beat her to the
car, the baby still wailing in his arms.
“What the FUCK are you doing?
dropped the wailing infant as Tarot shoved him at the car.
“You can
call the house when we’re out of the driveway!” she snapped. “Come ON! They don’t
know!”
Pietro
heard the panic in her voice, the sheer and abject terror, and something inside
him snapped. An overwhelming calm washed
over him, eerie in it’s perfection, and he slid into
the passenger seat. “We need a baby seat,” he said as Tarot ground the car into
life, overturning the key so that a metallic crunching sound rent the air
briefly.
“We can get
one in town,” she replied, her voice shaking in panic.
Sabretooth was running towards them, not even making an effort at
speed.
“Just
drive,” Pietro said in the same calm tone.
The baby was still wailing but at least now, the speed demon thought, he
seemed to be taking breaths between cries.
Tarot spun the car around, gears protesting at her rough treatment as
she sped down the drive. Pietro shifted
to look behind them and was almost amazed, but not quiet, to see that
Sabretooth had changed directions and was heading for the hidden
intruders. “Thank God,” he
muttered. “Operant conditioning kicks
in. Kill the intruders, not the son.”
Tarot
laughed, a watery and tremulous sound. “What
the Hell am I doing?” she asked aloud, staring straight ahead as she swung onto
the private road in front of the mansion.
The iron gate clanged shut behind them,
security measures grinding into motion a minute too late.
“Good
question,” Pietro shot back. “What ARE
you doing? And why am I involved?”
softly. “And where is his mother?”
“I don’t
know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” Tarot replied, her voice thick.
but Essex…he *knows * . He wants it…”
dirt road that ran along an old creek bed towards the farms on the far outskirts
of town.
“Wait,
what?
in her pink color and frazzled demeanor.
“Tarot, tell me what the Hell is going on…”
car swerved. The baby did not cry but seemed to stiffen in his arms as Tarot
righted the vehicle, keeping it from hitting the trees on the side of the road
or going into the ditch. Without a word,
she shut off the car and turned to look back at him.
shaking her head slightly. He followed
her gaze, first to the rearview mirror then shifting, both of them turning to
look out the rear window. A fireball,
like some micro-sun, burned above the tree tops from the direction they had
just come from.
Eloi Chapter Twelve
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… Gods, I love naps. ;) InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Graywolf are loverly and wondermous for archving/hosting. J ProPhile: Sure it’s not more than a visit? ;) Morgan: *GLOMP * Readers/Reviewers: Mille grazie for reading/reviewing as you can!
“Callisto, calm down!”
“No!” she roared, lifting the smaller mutant off the ground. “Who authorized this?”
Caliban wrapped his long fingers around her elbow and pulled Callisto back, forcing her to drop the other Morlock. “Calm down, Callisto. Terrorizing them is not going to help. No one will give information to you if they are afraid of you.”
“Yes, they will,” she ground out, wheeling about to reach for the shaking Morlock again.
“You will only get lies,” Caliban barked, grabbing Callisto again. “Fear has never inspired the truth!” He nodded to the small woman behind the de facto leader and she ran, disappearing into the darkness, her feet slapping against the concrete and sending echoes down the tunnel in both directions as she vanished.
Callisto did not twist free from his grasp but rather stood stock still, staring him down. When Caliban did not waver after nearly a full minute, she forced herself to speak. “This act of violence did not better us in the eyes of the…the Eloi, as you called them. This did not serve our purposes. We will be punished for it.”
“It was not a Morlock who did this,” Caliban said quietly. “No matter what the grapevine is saying.” He released her elbow and leaned in close. “Even Marrow cannot work that quickly. The Brotherhood is not a group that we want to attack and she knows that as well. Feral and Thornn have been accounted for…” He paused, his eyes never wavering from Callisto’s. “This is not a mutant action. An Eloi did this.”
She snorted and stepped back, putting just enough space between them so she felt comfortable but not enough to be rude. “Eloi, Eloi, Eloi… Which are the Eloi, Caliban? The mutants who live in their palaces above us or is it the norms who are unmarked by our curse? Is it the Brotherhood, the Institute, even that winged fellow who has the Bruce Wayne complex? Who are the Eloi, Caliban? They can’t all be!” She shook her head in slight annoyance, closing her eye. “I’m tired, you know. I’m sick and tired of this war which is always threatening but never coming. I am sick of hiding, sick of this life…”
“Soon, Callisto, and the war will be before us. This is the opening shot.” Caliban’s voice was softer than usual, his tone sad and almost dejected. “When it is over, we will be changed. We will no longer be the hidden ones, Callisto, whether we want it or not.”
She gritted her teeth, opening her eye to fix him with a steady, pointed gaze. “Were there any casualties?”
“Not as far as I’ve heard. It seems this was just a warning, given the signs…” He inhaled sharply and tilted his head to one side as if listening. “We have company coming.”
“Should I put out the kettle then?” she said bitterly. Company in the tunnels never amounted to anything good, in the long run.
“No,” Caliban said slowly, his face undergoing a full range of emotional displays from worried to horrified to bland and the gamut all over again. “But Kevlar might not be a bad idea.”
“What?” She laughed the word, a throaty sound in the dark passageway. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Caliban.”
“Not a good man, this one,” he murmured. “Coming fast. He knows where we are. Where you are. Spies among us…” His voice faded and he stepped back into the shadows, not leaving her but vanishing nonetheless.
Callisto frowned deeply. “Caliban, show yourself,” she murmured. She had never been afraid in the tunnels but she did not like the fact that her right hand, the man who kept her in check and balanced her, was hiding himself. It made her worry and when she worried, she felt vulnerable.
“I’m right next to you,” he murmured. “Be still.” His fingers brushed her arm and he felt her stop fidgeting. “He’s coming.”
Wet footsteps and muttered cursing proceeded the man moving down the tunnel. Callisto inhaled deeply, the scent of bergamot and rich tobacco, a picture painting itself in her mind of old money and dotty old men. _He smells like a grandfather, _ she mused, feeling Caliban brush against her arm again. “Show yourself,” she called down the tunnel. “And speak your name.”
“What good is my name in a place like this?” a voice returned, sounding more than a little amused. The footsteps stopped, the man out of Callisto’s eyesight.
She smirked to herself. He was making sure to stay just around the bend in the tunnel. He must know, she thought, that she has vision better than most mutants. “Show yourself,” she repeated. “Even a man without a name has a face of some form.” She took a few steps forward but the hitch in Caliban’s breath made her pause. He was truly afraid of this man. That, she decided, was frightening. “What monster fears the little girl on the bed?” she murmured so just her friend could hear. He did not respond save for a shaky exhalation.
“I have a face and a form,” the newcomer replied, his voice light. “But who I am is unimportant just now. What I offer…now that is the true wonder.”
“You are intruding in my home,” Callisto called, tired of the game already and more concerned for Caliban than what this man could possible have for them. “You leave now and I won’t call out the guard dogs.”
“Do you mean those sisters, the ones from the Bronx? Unfortunate things. So much potential, so little time.” He clucked his tongue like an old woman at Callisto’s sharp gasp.
_What did he do with Thornn and Feral? _ she wondered wildly. Something was not right… this man was no lost mutant, looking for a place to hide. Nor was he some lost sewer worker or even one of those conspiracy theorists they got down there when the cryptozoology conference was in town. He knew what they were. He knew exactly what they were. “I will kill you if you have harmed them,” she said blandly, reaching for the knife on her thigh.
“You would never have the chance,” the newcomer replied, stepping into her line of vision. “Doctor Nathaniel Essex, at your service, ready to show you wonders of which you have not yet dreamed…”