Devourer of Sins

DEVOURER OF SINS (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
God Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies...I don't know if you know this or not...but there seems to be a dragon in the tub with the dolphin. It's quite concerning Ted... Vampyre: eeeeeeviillllllll! InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are sparkley for archiving. My flights of muses follow you at all times! Readers/Reviewers: The ducks are stalking me. I'm sure of it...my only hope is that the Killer Kitties(tm) are strengthening and will be able to fend off an attack before it's too late...



Kitty stumbled over a root twisting up through the dirt, sprawling flat on her face on the jungle floor. "Ow."
"Katzchen, are you okay?" Kurt had scooped her up and set her on her feet before she could truly register falling. He had his holo on, hiding from Ruiz's eyes his mutation. Guzman had stayed back in the camp, Ruiz explaining that she would be along later, that there was evidence to collect.
"Yeah...fine...just a little woozy." She had been looking at Ruiz ahead of her, her mind still preying on the fact she knew him from somewhere. The more she thought about it, the worse her headache became.
"It's the heat," Ruiz said, stopping suddenly. "We'll rest here."
"No, I'm not too hot," Kitty protested. "Kurt, you okay?"
"Actually, ja, I'm fine, now that we're under the trees." Kurt had been guzzling water like it was going out of style, sticking to the shadows when possible but never far from Kitty. He was still hot but no longer felt like he was going to collapse.
Kitty shrugged and set her duffle bag on the ground, refusing to leave anything behind at the hut. Kurt joined her, using his bag to sit on as Ruiz paced before them, seemingly looking into the trees for something. "Is Detective Guzman going to be okay alone?" Kitty asked after the cry of insects had died for the moment.
"Si, she is a strong woman...she'll be fine until he...I...return." Ruiz favored Kitty with a weak smile and seemed to want to add to that statement, but only shook his head. "You two are very young to be out in the jungle like this..."
"Well, we had Professor Simpson with us so it's not like we're alone," Kitty sighed. "Is Jean really okay?"
Kurt watched Ruiz carefully, not trusting the man. The detective nodded and smiled, the expression not quite reaching his eyes. His voice tight, Ruiz said, "Your friend will be fine...accidental poisonings like this happen often to touristas who do not know the dangers of the jungle. The ancient Aztecs had many poisons from the plants of this jungle, many methods of killing that we still do not understand. Your friend merely found out the hard way that nature deserves respect, si?"
Kitty nodded dubiously. Kurt stood, advancing slowly towards Ruiz. "You never showed us your badge...can I see it now?"
"My badge?" The smile slipped for a moment. "Of course..." He fumbled in his pants pockets, finally producing a slim billfold from the compartment on his right thigh. "Here you go." He flipped it open at Kurt, who peered closely at it. Kurt nodded slowly and then made a motion for Kitty to look at the badge. She had no idea what she was looking for-this one looked as official as anything else she had seen-but she peered at it as well and nodded after she felt enough time had elapsed. "Now, are we ready to resume walking?" Ruiz said, slipping the item back into it's compartment.
Kitty looked at Kurt, still glaring at Ruiz. "Yes, I think we are...how much further is it?"
"Ah, well, we're almost to the top of the hill and it's an hour down the other side. Once we reach the base, it's about a forty five minute walk from there, if we do not stop to rest."
Kurt took the rear again, night senses alert for anything intrusive, eyes trained on Kitty ahead of him. This whole thing tasted wrong, it felt wrong, it was wrong. Ruiz was hiding something, and Guzman was just plain scary. She had not commented on his presence, merely acknowledge him hiding in the corner, above the floor, with a slight nod before returning her attention to Ruiz. _ For someone who supposedly speaks no English, she sure did seem interested in Ruiz's conversation with Kitty...Maybe she's learning or something. But how could she see me? Even Kitty has trouble seeing me and she can sense me anywhere... _ He felt violated somehow, betrayed by his own body. Guzman remaining behind with the body seemed odd to him, as well. _ Maybe I've been watching too many cop shows, but aren't they supposed to bring it back? If they had a helicopter, shouldn't they be able to come pick up the poor kid?_ A sharp motion before him broke his train of thought. Kitty was gone! "Schatz!" he cried, dashing forward.
"No!" Kitty's voice wailed from beneath him somewhere. He drew up short, one step away from pitching forward into a pit. "I fell into some sort of animal trap or something..."
"Where's Ruiz? Is he with you?" Kurt could not see the man anywhere, nor could he hear him. Kitty was barely visible and she seemed to be standing on her own two feet.
"I don't know. I thought I heard him say something and when I looked up, he was gone and then...I fell!" Her voice quavered a little. "Kurt, get me out of here!"
"Hold tight...I'm going to climb down..." He dropped to his knees and, taking one final glance around him for the missing Ruiz, he crawled forward, angling down the rock slope of a wall. The surface was slick but he maintained his grasp, the smell of some noxious gas burning his nostrils. "What the Hell is that?"
"I don't k" Ki" Kitty said weakly. She was swaying on her feet. "I thought it was sulfur but it doesn't have that eggy smell."
Kurt reached the floor quickly, flipping to his feet. "I'll port us out of here..."
"No, you won't..." The accented voice seemed to come from all around them. "You're mine now, my children, mine to have for all times..." Kurt felt his head snap back with an unseen force, Kitty's scream echoing in his ears before his world went black.

Jean found that her chamber did indeed have a window. More an oubliette, she reflected, set high in the rock wall. It was only the span of a few fingers and she could not tell if it let in the rising or setting sun, only that the sun was low in the sky based on the weakness of the light. She stirreisinising slowly on creaky joints, and tried to regain circulation in her limbs. She had been sitting on the cold floor for she did not know how long, trying to send psychic cries for help to any teep who could hear her. _Someone has to hear me... _ Popping her hips and knees with each step, Jean paced the perimeter of the chamber, finding it to be larger than she imagined. The light picked out a lump about three meters from her, not moving nor making a sound. _ Trash? Another rock? A trick of my eyes? _ She did not get a sign of life from whatever the lump was so she proceeded with caution, her legs screaming protest. When she got within a few feet, she felt bile rise in her throat. It was a man, or rather, it had been a man. From what she could tell, he had been horribly mutilated in the most gruesome fashion Jean could imagine, his genitals cut away and his chest flayed of skin. Gagging, she spun on her heel and made it back to what she thought of as "her" corner before vomiting. _A corpse, I'm in here with a corpse!!!! God help me... _ She did not recognize the low, keening cry as her own.


"I think my nose fell off somewhere around the Mall.1"
Storm smiled. "No, Todd...you're still intact. We'll be at the hotel shortly, though, and you can warm up." Rahne had long since dozed off in the cab as Storm looked placidly out the window.
"I feel like shit, yo..."
"Todd, language." She turned to look at the youth and was mildly disturbed-he looked gray beneath his usual greenish skin tone and his eyes drooped with sleep. He seemed mildly disoriented as he struggled to remain sitting upright. "Have you ever felt this way before, in the cold?"
"I try not to go out into it, you know...the whole toad thing..." He sniffed and shifted, propping himself against the window.
"Cold blooded..."
Rahne's voice, laden with sleep, drifted through the cab, "I think he prefers temperature challenged."
Todd snorted. "I like that...I think I'll use it..." He rocked forward as the cab jolted to a halt in front of their hotel.
"Let's get you inside and warm..." Storm led the sleepy teenagers into the hotel and up the elevator to the large suite the Professor had reserved for their stay. Two nights in and it already bore traces of youthful residence, clothes in piles at odd places and a suspicious piece of pizza sitting on the dresser. "When did we have pizza?" Storm asked no one in particular.
"Yesterday," Rahne yawned. "When you sent us back because the talks were getting 'too technical,' we got bored and ordered room service." She failed to mention that Todd had picked the lock to the honor bar and they had emptied it of the cashews and macadamia nuts while they were waiting.
Storm raised a brow. "I see...remind me to have a talk with you in the morning about responsible behavior in hotels..."
"Aw, Storm, we just had dinner," Todd said, huddling beneath a blanket. "Ain't no harm, huh?"
"I suppose not..." The older woman sighed and layered another blanket over Todd. "Do you two understand why we're here?"
"The Professor said it was because we needed to learn about some stuff going on in the government that would affect us as mutants...but Storm, I haven't heard anything about mutants the whole time we had to sit through those talks." Rahne was rightly bored out of her skull, tired of American politics and anything vaguely smacking of bureaucracy.
Todd peeked out from the cocoon of blankets and said, "They were talkin' about birth defects...birth defects and genetic engineering..."
Storm nodded grimly. "At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, the government works in mysterious ways. What the public sees and hears are but thin veneers over more...far reaching and invasive...issues."
"You going Smoking Man2 on us, Storm?" Rahne teased.
Storm smiled grimly. "Rahne, there are more things going on behind the scenes than you could ever dream of. Genetic engineering is presented to the public as a way to prevent life-threatening birth defects, for example. However, on a deeper level..." She braced herself, knowing how outlandish it sounded when Logan had told her of this, "genetic engiing ing is a method for creating mutants. Not all mutants are born...some are made."
Todd was fully awake now and his mind was reeling. "Someone would _want _ to be a mutant?"
"Not necessarily..." Storm sat between the two of them and sighed. "Logan, as you may know, was himself altered by man. His alteration is minor compared to some of the things certain...groups...are planning and have even created prototypes of."
Todd and Rahne exchanged queasy glances. Rahne asked slowly, "So...the Professor wants us to be afraid of the government?"
"No," Storm shook her head quickly. "He wants you to understand that our fight is not just against Magneto or Mystique, but against wide-ranging forces that do not fight clean nor are they a tangible entity. He wants you to see the politics behind our coming persecution-make no mistake, children, we will be persecuted. Our kind has suffered all through time. The different, the unusual, the...freaks...of the world....we have long suffered at the hands of those who do not understand or wish to destroy or manipulate us. Understand, children, what we are fighting." With that, she stood and nodded coolly. "It's late...I suggest we all get some rest. Tomorrow, the meeting is supposed to be closed to the public but the Professor has pulled some strings for us to attend. It is in our best interest to be alert."

The Professor put quite a bit of faith in instinct. It had saved his life several times and prevented his charges from doing themselves bodily harm more than once in the past week. Now, his instinct was telling him something was very wrong with Jean, Kitty and Kurt. He could not explain it other than a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach, something he might have attributed to a bit of undigested beef at dinner3 had he not experienced this many times before. The night was inky black, the moon and stars obscured by heavy clouds pregnanth snh snow, and the Professor could see himself in the window glass, brow furrowed and mouth pinched. _I should call the university...they would know how to get hold of Theo. Jean has not contacted me telepathically, but what if she can't? What if something has happened? _
"Chuck, you're acting like a brooding hen..."
"Logan...I didn't hear you come in."
Logan frowned. For Charles Xavier not to realize he was being approached meant the man was _seriously _ distracted. "What's wrong?"
"I'm worried about the children..."
"They're with your friend, right? They're fine, I'm sure..."
"Do you put much faith in gut instinct? What am I saying...of course you do...Trust me when I say that I _know _ something is wrong..."
Logan sighed. He had been worried himself, mainly about Kitty, but he wrote it off to paternal nerves and tried not to think on it, concentrating instead on keeping Remy's hands off Jubilee while they did their duty in Manhattan. Rogue was not a problem, ringing her brass bell with the ferocity of Quasimodo on the tower of Notre Dame, her scowl intimidating passer-by into donating. "Tell you what, Chuck, tomorrow I'll call that school your friend teaches at and see if they can get in touch with 'em, okay?"
"Are you sure you're not psychic?"
"Funny..." Logan dreaded what he had to say next, but he forced himself. "Uh, Chuck...it seems we have a more immediate problem on our hands."
"Oh?"
"Jamie's pretty sick and well...he duped and can't go back..."
"What?"
"He duped and..."
"I heard you...it was more a random noise of surprise."4
Just then, a chorus of sneezes echoed down the hall. "Hear that?" Logan sighed. "He says he's been trying to...get them to go away...but he just can't."
The Professor sighed. "Why is it the holidays always bring chaos around here?"



1 For those who don't know...the Mall in Washington D.C. is not a shopping mall. It's more of a long, grassy arcade with the Washington Monument and the Reflection Pool at one end.
2 Shameless X-Files reference
3 It's almost Xmas...gotta have a Christmas Carol reference in there somewhere... It's how Scrooge might describe his visit from Marley.
4 Stolen from Lois McMasters Bujold in A Civil Campaign. I love Miles. There. I said it.