Devourer of Sins

DEVOUER OF SINS CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Disclaimers Apply

A/n Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, may your muses never leave you!!!!!! InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink: thanks millions and tons for archiving! Readers/Reviewers: I see the Killer Kitties (tm) gearing up for a stalk...I think we'd all better watch our toes...



"The little bastard bit me!" Jubilee yelped, falling back against Scott and waving her finger in the air.
"Well, you shoved your hand in his face," Jamie said, soothing the puppy with low hushing noises, patting it's head.
"Did not!" Jubilee sucked on the small nick in her finger, the blood welling in tiny ruby dots each time she let up pressure.
"Whatever," Scott said, scooping the dog up, "the Professor said it can stay here tonight, but tomorrow we have to either try and find it's owner or take it to the shelter in town."
Kitty frowned. Her senses were almost back to normal save for the odd influx of a scent, much too strong to be considered normal, or a sound that should have been unnoticed echoing in her ears like gunshot. This puppy, she thought, did not smell right. It smelled familiar. "Scott, may I?"
He sighed. Kitty was holding out her hands like a beggar and he always had had a soft spot for girls with big, brown eyes... "Okay. Just be careful. It's kind of skittish."
Kitty took the dog gingerly from Scott's arms and held it at some distance from her own body, staring at it as she drew it slowly closer. Jubilee, Jamie and Kurt exchanged confused glances as Kitty inhaled deeply, her eyes closing tightly. The puppy, for it's part, just hung there. It did not struggle, wiggle or even whimper. It seemed, in fact, to be staring at Kitty. "Copal," the girl finally announced, startling the group. "It smells like copal...has it been in Amara's room?"
"No," Scott said slowly.
Kurt took the puppy from Kitty and handed it back to Scott, not liking the scowl that settled over his girlfriend's features. "Kitty, maybe it's just the outdoors you smell on the dog, burning leaves and such..."
"No," she said, firmly and assuredly, "it's copal...that resin stuff. Amara burns it sometimes and that's what was burning when we were...there..."
Jubilee opened her mouth to ask what Kitty was talking about but Jamie's exclamation cut her short. "Hey! The dog's bleeding again!"
Sure enough, a steady trickle of blood issues from the dog's paws, thin rivulets like a canine stigmata streaking Scott's shirt and jeans, the dog not even whimpering at the sudden exsanguinations. "Shit! Kurt, get Beast or something!" Kurt was gone in a blink, Jamie rushing off to grab towels or tissue or something to staunch the flow.
Jubilee cried out in distress at the sight of so much blood, still trickling thinly from the dog's paws, but Kitty's strangled noise was for a different reason. "Oh, my God!" she breathed, taking the dog back from Scott. As she held it up, it became evident that this dog was not right. As the blood drained out, the dog seemed to be diminishing, legs seeming to deflate then vanish, the pool of blood at Scott's feet growing, the streaks on his clothes falling away like peeling paint. The pool seemed to be gelling, bubbling and darkening even as they stared at it, even as the animal decreased in Kitty's grasp.
Jamie skittered to a halt, hands full of paper towels and words dying on his lips as he took in the scene. "I'm gonna be sick," he said, voice choked with fear.
"Beat you to it," Jubilee said, making involuntary gagging noises as she turned away from the sight. Kurt reappeared, Beast's lumbering strides following him closely.
"Was ist das?" He grabbed Kitty, pulling her roughly to his chest and making her drop what was left of the dog. It joined the pool on the floor and the mess became one black puddle of gelatinous matter.
"What the Hell..." Beast drew up short and shoved Jamie and Jubilee behind him on reflex. "Clear the area! Now!"
"Too late," Scott muttered. The goo was heaving as if alive, which it may well have been for all they knew. It twisted writwrithed, tendrils shooting up and falling back down. In one massive, sloshing motion, it rose to a height of nearly five feet then fell back down. As one, they all took one giant step back, a movement that would have been comical had the situation not been so singularly threatening. The mess rose again, this time twirling into shape, taking on human form.
"Go. Now." Beast snapped. Jamie needed not further encouragement. He was gone in a slip-slide of sock-clad feet, pullJubiJubilee behind him despite her gagging protests. Kurt was faster, taking Kitty in a blink and cloud of sulphur, leaving Scott and Beast to stare at the black-red entity before them. "Scott, go!"
"No..." Fearless Leader mode had kicked into overdrive and Scott was not to be moved. "Someone's got to be around to fill out the insurance forms!"
Beast shook his head at the show of humorous bravado but pressed again for the teenager to leave. "There's some things you don't know about, things that we're just discovering...go get the Professor if you must do something, but don't stay here!" He did not add that he had already sent a psychic call to the man, but Beast just did not want Scott in harm's way.
"I'm not going to leave you alone with...what the Hell?" The black goo was looking very familiar.
"Scott," Beast sighed, more resigned than annoyed, "I don't have time to explain things right now, but if this is doing what I think it's doing, I'm going to need to get to the lab fast...go set it up for me..."
Scott felt it was best to do as the man said, his sense of self preservation kicking in finally. He did not even bother asking how Beast wanted the lab set or what he was going to do-he just took off at a dead run for the medical unit in the mansion.
Beast eased out of his crouch, circling the form warily. It seemed to be disoriented, blinking and wet as a new born foal. "Hello there..." he murmured, edging closer. It looked like Jubilee but he knew it was not. Still, he had qualms about grabbing, much less looking at, anything resembling a naked student. "Let's go for a walk, shall we?" While the...the Creature1, he decided to call it in a fit of Mary Shelley-esque pique, stared wetly, swaying on it's feet uncertainly, Beast moved. In one swift, sweeping leap, he wrapped his arms around the Jubilee-clone's middle and tucked her under his arm, knuckling towards the waiting lab as fast as a three-limbed gait could take him.


Logan smelled chemicals and death. He could tell, despite the attempts by the police to clean the crime scene, where the body had lain by the strong metallic smell of blood still in the carpet and the sweet tang of flesh as it had lain in the heat. Papers were still scattered and one file cabinet was badly dented, as if by a massive hammer. _Couldn't be bothered to pick up the files, huh? _ It had been with great finesse and bribery that Logan convinced Storm not to come to Professor Simpson's office. It was easier for him to move alone and besides, he had reasoned both to himself and her, only half-joking, "Someone may need to post bail." Storm had agreed with some reservation, setting to work on the computer in the hotel room even before Logan had closed the door behind him.
Now, he found himself alone in the dark of night, standing in the middle of a dead man's office. Not sure where to begin, Logan let instinct lead him, his eyes finally choosing the fan of papers spread across the floor, the ill-cleaned handprint indicating just which way the man had fallen. Flipping the top few sheets over, two words leapt out at Logan and burned his eyes like the sun. "Top Secret." Pausing a moment, his breath hitching in his chest and painful memories sparkling in his brain-pictures of a lab long ago and far away, flashes of pain and whispers of deadly secrecy-Logan then swept the rest of the scattered papers into one neat pile and tucked them inside his jacket, securing them under his waistband. Several glittering tschtoskes drew Logan's attention, their value inestimable but obviously great even to Logan's unpracticed eye. Gold, jade and obsidian shone brightly in the filtered moonlight; square, grimacing faces with protruding tongues and flat eyes stared at him accusingly from the bookshelf across from Professor Simpson's desk Logan traced one finger across the first figure, a skeleton worked in gold with jade teeth and black eyes, and was surprised to feel warmth rather than expected chill of fine metal and stone. The figure felt almost alive under his touch, throbbing with heat as warm as blood and shining with a purpose Logan could not name. _These things are worth thousands each...why are they still here if it was an attempted robbery like the cops say? _ Feeling a twinge of guilt, Logan picked up each figurine in turn and tucked them into his scattered pockets. A feather-light whisper teased his hearing but he could not make out words. Instead, he had the distinct feeling of being watched, of someone waiting for him to finish before they could continuetevetever it was he had interrupted.
Shaking off the feeling, Logan moved to the battered file cabinet, the metal crumpled in places as if it were paper, dents like bes ies in others. Jiggling the topmost drawer, he pried it loose, but just barely. With a sigh of resignation, he unled ond one metal claw and slashed the metal as if it were warm butter, the tug of resistance on his skeleton only a brief discomfort. Papers spilled out, some in Spanish, most in English, and many bea odd odd drawings and cryptic scrawls in something resembling pictographs. _I'm gonna need a box... _

Storm barely looked up from the computer as Logan entered, dropping the box he had indeed found onto the bed, then emptying his pockets atop it. "Find anything?" she asked,tingting down what was on the screen.
"Wanna take a look for yourself?" Something in his tone made her look up and her mouth dropped open in surprise at the amount of stuff he had brought back from his foray into the slain professor's office. "We're gonna have to sort through this...I saw some stuff that might be useful."
"The papers I understand, but these?" Storm picked up one of the statuettes, a squat figure holding ears of maize, its tongue protruding in a manner that would have been considered grque que in any other style of art.
Logan looked sheepish at her raised brow. "I can't really explain it except that I think these have to do with some of these papers...it's weird; they felt warm even before I put 'em in my pockets, like they were alive or something..."
Storm made a low noise in her throat and dropped the figure, the old urge, abandoned since leaving her village of long ago, to make a hex sign against possession and devils rising and falling as the thing bounced once on the bed. "We'll see..." she murmured, ignoring Logan's own raised eyebrow and taking a sheaf of papers off the top of the box. "Logan, did you read any of these?" she asked after several minutes of silent reading during which Logan merely stared at her, fingering one of the golden idols.
"I skimmed it," he admitted. "Looks like some secret government shit, not like archaeology at all."
"Botany is more my strong suite, but from what I can grock2, Professor Simpson was involved in government research. I thought Charles said the professor was an archaeologist..."
"Exactly, 'Ro...I think we've stirred up a hornet's nest."

1 Interesting to bookworms like me, but in FRANKENSTEIN, the Creature was called just that, the Creature, and never Frankenstein. That was the name of the scientist, which was latter screwed up for the movie. Then there's always the Mel Brooks classic, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN ("It's FRONKENSTEEN!!!")
2 Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein introduced tharm..rm...