Wirklich ein Engel(truly an Angel)

"The lights are on, so somebody's still up." Dimitri said to the young blond on his arm. SHe flashed a grin that was like sunlight off water.

"Its probably Ivy. She's always up till the wee hours in the morning." She said as he put a key in the lock and opened the door noiselessly. The light was coming from a room upstairs, the rest of the house silent as a grave, save the aged Siamese cat that trotted to the entryway to greet them. Aislyn instantly stooped to give the cat the attention it was demanding as Dimitri scanned the house.

Something was amiss. The t.v was off, the lights downstairs dim...and the smell of cooking food was completely absent. That was it! Ivy put so much emphasis on eating dinner with her roommates that the lack of such things left Dimitri unnerved. Either they had gone out and gotten trashed, or something happened and Ivy was upset. She usually did the cooking in the evening.

Aislyn was looking at him with similar thoughts in her clear blue eyes as she set the cat down. She brushed her strawberry blond hair from her face and lead him wordlessly for the stairs. They creaked appallingly as they climbed them and Dimitri rolled his dark chestnut eyes in irritation as he always did. No one seemed to notice though, and the steady murmur of Ivy's voice floated to them. Her words were too low to be understood, but her tone was soothing, like it was when she talked to her animals.

"Ana and Rachel are probably asleep." Dimitri said, trying to mask his growing concern with normal conversation. Aislyn merely nodded, quickening her pace and following the sound of Ivy's voice to the main Bathroom. She stopped in the doorway however, jaw dropping open at the sight that greeted her. Dimitri nearly bowled directly into her, grabbing the doorframe to hold himself upright.

Ivy, rain soaked and haggard looking, was kneeling next to the bathtub where she was cleaning blood from the blue fur of a demonic looking mutant. His tail hung over the edge of the tub, limp as the rest of him. His hair was matted to his face and neck, and after the blood had been cleared away his wounds were obvious and many.

"Ivy…what happened?" Aislyn asked softly, trying to tear her eyes from the mutants bare form. He was lean and muscular, but the wounds seemed so garish, his three fingered hands so alien. Curiosity itself drove her forward, had her kneeling next to her friend. Ivy sniffed and wiped her face on the sleeve of her soaked hoody before turning her gaze on Dimitri and Aislyn.

She explained what had happened in a few curt words, draining the tub and casting about for a towel. Dimitri moved into the bathroom and handed one from the hall closet to her, studying the mutant's angular face as Aislyn helped her maneuver him out of the tub and get the towel around his lean body.

"He has a really bad fever, and I think a concussion too." Ivy said thickly, as though she had been crying. "He passed out as soon as I got him in here. He needs rest and I've gotta break that fever.." She was saying, though it was unclear if she was talking to them or herself. She reached for another towel and did her best to dry him off, not meeting the gaze of either of her friends. The mutant mumbled slightly but remained out cold even as Dimitri moved forward and carried him to Ivy's room, laying him gently on the bed.

"Anything else we can do to help?" He asked simply, turning to regard the two girls who had followed him.

Ivy thought for a moment as she drew the covers over the mutant's bare blue form. She let her fingers brush against the still damp fur of his face as her hand rested briefly on his forehead. "The cold bath helped, his fever's gone down, but not by much, and I'll need to do something about the gashes on his chest." She murmurred. "I'm going to need a bowl of cold water and a washcloth." She decided at length. Aislyn nodded and darted wordlessly from the room. Ivy could hear her going down the stairs.

"Would that salve help, the one you made for when me and Artis go play with the bonk-sticks in the backyard?" Dimitri asked after another moment of silence. "I mean, it always worked great on our cuts and bruises and shit." Ivy didn't reply right away, brushing the mutant's blue-black hair from his face as she pondered her friend's words.

"It should." She said at length, nodding. At that moment Aislyn returned with a bowl of water and a washcloth as asked for. Ivy could hear ice clinking against the sides of the bowl and she smiled despite herself. Her friends were the best. She moved forward to take the cloth and bowl from Ailslyn, but she drew away.

"No." She said firmly. "You're soaking wet and covered in blood. Go take a shower and get some dry clothes on." Her tone was like a stern mother hen.

"She's right." Dimitri agreed from the doorway, returning to the room with an earthenware jar in his hands. "And you can't help him if you get sick too. Go on and take a shower. We'll take over till you get back." He said matter of factly.

Ivy opened her mouth to protest, but she was outnumbered and Aislyn was already placing the damp cloth on the mutant's forehead while Dimitri smeared the salve on his chest and dressed it with bandages from her nightstand. With a sigh and a shake of her head she quietly quit the room. She closed the door behind her and returned to the bathroom, twisting on the hot water as she peeled away her wet clothes and piled them on the floor in the corner.

She shivered as she stepped into the shower, letting the hot water beat against her back a moment before she started scrubbing, watching as the blood and grit slid off her body, mingling with suds before swirling down the drain. She could feel warmth returning to her pale, clammy extremities, the steam that rose around her soothing, clearing her mind. She felt calmer now. Able. She took a deep breath, accidentally snorting water up her nose. It reminded her of crying. She wondered about the mutant upstairs, how he would feel once he was better, where he would go. She knew nothing about him, really and yet she was probably the only person willing to help him. No. She corrected herself. Dimitri and Aislyn were the best helpers she could ask for, and Rachel and Anakalia would doubtless join in too once they were awake and up to speed.

Twisting off the water she stepped back out of the shower and draped a fuzzy black towel about herself, padding into the hallway and down the stairs, hardly seeing the paintings and weapons that adorned the walls, items collected from countless renaissance fairs. The short emerald carpet was soft on her feet and heartening in its own strange way as she moved to the laundry room.

The laundry room itself was sparse compared to the rest of the house, with a bare cement floor and plain wooden walls encasing a washer and dryer. The mutant's clothes were piled on the washer in a heap and without really considering her actions she opened the lid to the washer and began to toss the clothes in, a pair of worn khaki pants with a hole for his tail, a nondescript button up shirt and his long black coat. She giggled despite herself when she tossed in his plaid boxers, which also sported a hole for his tail. After adding the detergent and switching the machine on she reached for the wallet she removed from his pants. Maybe that could give her some clue as to what kind of person he was.

She flipped it open with slender fingers and peered inside. There was no cash whatsoever, the whole of the wallet's space taken up by photos of people who must be his friends. There was a man with a lot of stubble smoking a cigar, and another with the same man only this time the blue mutant that was upstairs was perched on his shoulder. They were both smiling widely. Other pictures showed a man with sunglasses with his arm around a woman with impossibly red hair, a girl about Ivy's age with expressive eyes and wavy brown hair, a purple dragon perched on her shoulder. She was standing with a tall, barrel chested man in pants and suspenders, his black hair swept back from a friendly, chiseled face. There was a Bald man in a business suit and wheelchair, a handsome blond man with enormous white feathered wings, a man with brown hair and a Hawaiian shirt, and an African American woman with clear blue eyes and pure white hair. She was, in Ivy's opinion, very very pretty. There was also several more pictures of the same people, some of them with the blue mutant in them too. In every picture he was smiling the same warm smile. He looked so happy.

There was no drivers license or anything to be found besides the photos and a worn New York ID that read 'Kurt Wagner' below a picture of the smiling blue mutant. She wondered how he had come all the way from New York to wander the alleyways of San Francisco all by himself.