Devourer of Sins

DEVOURER OF SINS CHAPTER THIRTY (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, mille grazie for the idea for the next story and Ted says he will bring you hot tea every day after work for the rest of your life. I think that's a given...lol. InterNutter, TC, and Maxwell Pink are super for archiving. :) Readers/Reviewers: I think the ducks are retreating...who wouldn't in the face of the Killer Kitties (tm) and the heavily armed platypi? I think I saw one of those platypi reading Soldier of Fortune earlier...disturbing...


Kitty did not feel well. She could not quite see and the world felt like it was pressing in on her from all sides, hot and close and sticky and smelling of burning dust and, for some reason, copper. Her tongue felt heavy and tasted like rotten vegetation, her bones liquid and useless under her mind's control. Voices buzzed around her and she tried to pick one only to find herself quickly nauseated. "Do not fight it," a female voice intoned lightly. "You will die."
"Die..." Kitty breathed, her vision clearing slightly. She could see several people seated before her but could not make out their faces or forms. "I...no...don't want to..." She knew that whatever was happening was wrong, that she did not want to be part of it but somehow was. Shaking her head, trying to clear her vision, Kitty said louder, "No."
"What?" The woman sounded closer and Kitty recognized her voice, her scent.
"I said, no. I left you behind in Mexico. Why did you come here?" She was scared but hoped it was not showing as she scrubbed at first one eye, then the other with the back of her hand, her vision not clearing any in the process.
"Why, child, you brought me here! You wanted me to come, needed me...you need to be absolved." A cold finger touched Kitty's cheek and she shuddered involuntarily. "Absolution will be my price..."
"Price for what?" the girl asked shakily, betraying her fear.
"For cleaning up what my...masters...could not." The cold touch left her face and Kitty fairly fell forward with relief. There were subtle murmurs and some rustling, but Kitty's vision was still clouded, occluding the people before her. "Now, my child, it is not quite time for our rite. We must wait for the dark moon...on the eventide of the morrow, we will be complete."
Someone sat next to Kitty, rather, was forced down next to Kitty. They were warm and smelled vaguely like the lake and moist soil. "Todd?" she managed after a moment. "Todd, is that you?"
He tensed-she could feel it. "How can you tell?" he finally asked.
"You smell....wet. Like water and mud." Kitty, despite their situation, felt bad about saying that. "It's not a bad smell...and my senses are still all screwy... Can you see?"
"Yeah, can you?" he snapped, a little irritated by her description, an irritation tempered with fear.
"Not really...where are we?"
"The lab...she's gone."
"Who is it?"
"Dunno...looked like Rogue when she came to me and then, when we got here, she did some weird shit with a bunch of powder on the table that Beast said came from the freezer. Now, she's all...scary."
"Beast is here?" Kitty asked excitedly, nearly pitching forward from the table in her haste to rise. Todd leaned against her and stopped her progress, part of Kitty's mind picking up that he must be bound in order to act against her like that. "Why isn't he doing anything?"
Todd sighed. He had long ago resigned himself to abuse, starting when he was a small child. This was really nothing new. _Same shit, different day...though this broad does have some crazy scene set up... _ Virtually everyone save Jean, The Professor, Logan and Storm were tied with anything Tlazolteotl could find from rope to electrical cords, all between consciousness and the uneasy sleep that comes to those who are drugged, Beast among them. "Kitty, Beast can't do anything. He's tied up...he was awake for a little while but that lady blew some white stuff at him from a bag and he passed out, like the others."
Kitty really wanted to cry then. "What others?" She held her breath as Todd ran down the list of those present and breathed a small sigh of relief when she did not hear Logan's name. _He'll get us out of this...this mess. He has to... _ "Why aren't you tied up, too?"
"I am...she just wanted me awake. She said I was gonna be It....Itzli?" He stumbled over the name, tasting it's strangeness in his mouth.
"Itzli...the little guy," Kitty said softly. "He was kind of her helper in Mexico..." Colors were becoming vaguely distinct and she could make out one large mass of blue next to one smaller mass of a similar shade. "K...Kurt?" Kitty said with a taint of a whimper in her voice. "Is he okay?"
"I think they all are..." He could not quite see Rogue and Lance, as they were propped on the far side of a long row of cabinets. Todd could just make out Rogue's leg and a smear of brown-red, praying that it was mud or someone else's blood. "I'm not too sure."
"Where did she go?" Kitty was slowly easing herself off the table, stretching her strangely bare toes to feel for the floor. "And why am I barefoot?"
Todd cleared his throat. "Um, you're kind of...naked."
"What?" Kitty tried very hard to keep the screech out of her voice. "Naked? You didn't look, did you?"
"No. Not at all..." Todd rolled his eyes. _Chick's crazy...we're going to die and she's worried I saw her tits. Nice ones, though... _ "Kitty, sit still! You're gonna...."
"Ow!"
"Fall..." He sighed. "I can't help you up...I'm pretty much stuck here..."
"I'm good, I'm up!"1 The colors were slowly forming shapes and Kitty felt a little less scared. Her abdomen felt wet and warm, though, her head a little lighter than before. Todd's sudden intake of breath confirmed her fears. "How bad is it?"
"Bad enough...your cut opened..." He looked away. The long, thin line on Kitty's stomach was gaping like a mouth, grinning terribly at him. "Kitty, quit movin' around and you won't bleed so much!"
A most curious thing was happening to Kitty, though. The more she bled, the clearer her vision became. She thought it was a hallucination at first but after a few seconds, she realized that each pump of her heart brought sight a little closer. "No...I need to..." Todd watched with horror as she began moving her arms rapidly, like she was string to take off, making the blood course more quickly. Now her abdomen was crimson, the blood spilling to her thighs and staining her skin. Todd was sick then, quietly and thoroughly, all over the lab table and somewhat on his jeans. Kitty swayed unsteadily and blinked, clamping her hands over her wound. "I can see..." She swallowed her gorge, rising quickly in her throat, and looked at Todd. "Oh...I'm so sorry..." He made an incoherent noise and vomited again. Kitty made her way-slowly and weaving a bit-towards shelf where Beast kept his bandages. "I need your help," she said to the sick teenager.
"Yo..."
Carefully, stumbling once, she crossed to Todd and, using the scissors from the first aid kit, cut Todd's hands free. "Bandage me...Don't worry about cleaning up..."
"Kitty," Todd murmured, carefully keeping his face averted to avoid breathing his foul breath on her. "I can't...this is...this is..."
"Todd, I can't wrap it tightly enough around myself. I'm trying not to freak out here, okay? Just...help me." _Yaya lived through concentration camps, tons of times worse than this...I can make it. It's only a flesh wound... _ 2 Todd looked greener than usual as he took the roll of gauze and the thick fiber pad from Kitty. She winced as he bound her, his hands shaking and hiccoughs of nausea making him nudge her more than once. "Thank you," she said when he pulled away. "How long has she been gone?"
"A while...what do we do if she comes back?" Todd's eyes flickered to the door and back to Kitty, nerves making his pupils wide.
"I'm not sure...I just know we have to get everyone up...you said white powder. Did she use it on everyone?" Kitty was still shaky on her feet but she forced herself to move smoothly, going to the closet where Beast kept gowns and coats to use in the medical wing. She took one of hib cob coats and wrapped it around her as best she could, folding the sleeves back many times to free her hands.
"Dunno...I just know she did it to Beast and then she told me she wanted me awake, that I was Itzli and she demanded I obey her." He shrugged ashamedly. "I said okay..."
Kitty nodded glumly. "No choice, I know..." She felt and looked lost, taking in her friends lined up like sacks of potatoes, bent at odd angles and slack with stupor. "Any ideas?"
"Slap 'em?"
"Somehow, I don't think that's going to work..." Kitty cast about the lab, one ear trained for sounds of approaching lunatics. "Okay. Help me block the door..." Together, Kitty and Todd shoved one of the gurneys and rtabrtable x-ray machine before the entrance, though they had to move slowly to prevent Kitty from bleeding further. As an afterthought, Kitty turned the lock.
"Nice, Pryde. Why didn't we do that in the first place?" Todd snorted, albeit halfheartedly.
"Todd, play nice or so help me I'm gonna throw you to her..." Kitty went to Kurt as if pulled by an invisible string. "Baby, can you hear me?"
Todd sighed. "They're deaf to the world...what ever she did to 'em knocked 'em out entirely." He edged towards Rogue, stepping over protruding feet and arms. He was half afraid to see her but he forced himself, taking slow, deep breaths to calm his nerves. Her eyes were open, staring, and he would have taken her for dead had he not seen the shallow rise and fall of her chest. Blood streaked down her neck and pooled in the hollow of her collne, ne, sending Todd to his knees before her. "Rogue! Marie...wake up! Fuck..." He slapped her arm a little harder than necessary but still she did not even blink.
Kitty was loathe to leave Kurt but she crawled on her knees to where Todd was crouched. Her blood ran thick in her veins when she saw Rogue. "Is she..."
"She's breathing..." Todd knew he was crying and knew Kitty could see him but at that moment, he did not care. "Marie...wake up!"
Kitty's own breath hitched. Kurt was breathing deeply and regularly; he was just disconcertingly unconscious. Rogue was frightening her, though-her eyes were glazed and fixed, the pupils dilated so that there was a bare rim of color in around them. Todd was babbling, rubbing Rogue's hands, afraid to move her for the visible gash on her neck. She cast about frantically, her eyes finally lighting on something she kicked herself mentally for not thinking of earlier. "Oxygen! Here!" Kitty scrambled to her feet and dragged the portable oxygen tank and mask over to Todd. "Give her oxygen..."
"How the hell do you work this thing?"
"Damn it..." Kitty look all over the canister and found a short list of instructions, printed by the manufacturer on the side. _I'm not sure if that's comforting or not...these are sold to medical professionals and they need instructions printed on them? Well, I should be thankful... _
Todd did his best at giving Rogue oxygen as Kitty pressed a pad of gauze to the girl's neck, staunching the small trickle of blood that began anew as she was jostled and revived. A tremendous banging set up at the door, making Todd fairly jump out of his skin. Kitty cried out sharply in surprise and pulled away from Rogue. The blood drying on her body was sticky and clotted, but she knew that Tlazolteotl could not exert control over her now. The white clots mixed with the red told their story, the powder put into her wound and sealed in her skin had bled out. She could not name the facility that told her the substance put into her wound by the dark woman was a link, but Kitty knew as surely as she knew her own name that those crystallized lumps in her blood, sticking to her skin and now Beast's lab coat were something sinister and meant to destroy her and whoever else was infected. Rogue coughed painfully and Kitty's attention snapped forward. "Stop giving her air...make sure she's not bleeding too much..."
Todd nodded, following Kitty's sudden leap to authority without question out of sho shock and fear. Rogue had indeed started bleeding more but he pressed on the pad on her neck and she sighed, the blood slowing and congealing after a few moments. "Should I give oxygen to the others?"
"Beast...give it to Beast first..." As much as Kitty wanted Kurt conscious and by her side, she knew that they would most likely need Beast's strength and cunning soon, even weakened as it was sure to be from Tlazolteotl's ministrations. The banging had increased to a steady crashing, howls in a tongue like that of demons to Kitty's ears joining the fray. Kitty choked on a sob, fear breaking free from behind the barrier of bravado.
"Do something!" Todd snapped.
Kitty nodded dumbly now. _She drinks blood...vampires...kill them with a stake in the heart. What if she has no heart? Cut off her head...God, I can't do that! _ Even as her mind protested, Kitty rifled through the drawer near blockaded door. She selected a sealed, disposable scalpel and, with one look at Todd applying the mask to Beast's mouth and nose, she scrambled up onto the counter. Tlazolteotl was succeeding in opening the door, the gurney and X Ray machine inching back with each thud. Kitty held her breath and waited, biting her lip so hard she drew blood. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Kurt, prone and still as death. _Forgive me, babe, cause I don't know if I'm gonna be able to forgive myself if I do this... _

1 "Miss Congeniality" moment...she falls on her face then pops up-'I'm good! I'm up! I'm fine!"
2 Monty Python...another thing I watch too much of.