When Worlds Collide

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE CHAPTER FOUR (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

 

 

“Bobby,
slow down on that coffee…you’ll be up all night!” Rogue reached for the young man’s demitasse of super-strong
Creole coffee, but had her gloved hand slapped.

“No touchy,”
he snapped. “Coffee helps soothe my
nerves and until I see that Kitty is okay with my own two eyes, I’m going to be
a nervous wreck.”

As if on
cue, Kitty swung around the corner of the café and into view. She was on crutches and had a nasty bruise down
one side of her face, but aside from those injuries, she appeared healthy and
happy, chattering animatedly to someone who looked familiar to Bobby. “That,” Jean said, reading his thoughts with
very little effort, “is Kurt. The one
who was at the school with you…”

“The one
she’s decided she’s in love with?” Rogue asked dryly, waving Kitty over to
their table. They did not want to
arouse the interest of tourists sitting around them or locals who were pretty
much jaded by everything so she fought the urge to run to her half sister and
either shake her for making herry ory or hug the stuffing out of her for being
alive.

“That’d be
him,” Jean allowed, feeling an unknown rush of heat to her belly when Scott
appeared, weaving through the late-season tourists to keep up with Kurt and
Kitty. He was followed by two other
people, who, she surmised, must be Remy and Belladonna. Remy, despite his marked appearance, did not
draw much attention aside from appreciative female glances. Belladonna, tho was was the equivalent of a
blinking neon sign over their heads.
She was clad entirely in black, from her skin-tight pants to her boots
and back up to the tank top she wore like a second skin. Her shining blonde hair was twisted into a
complicated knot at the nape of her neck and her icy blue eyes were piercing
even from a distance. She fixed her
gaze on the table of mutants and seemed to be assessing them, which, Jean
sighed to herself, she probably was.

“Rogue!”
Kitty shouted, trying to move faster on the crutches but only succeeding in
bobbling dangerously as she became caught in a street grate.

“Liebes,
slow down!” Kurt cried, catching her before she fell. “Let me…” In one easy movement, he picked her up, crutches and
all, and kissed her quickly on the forehead.


“Ugh,”
Bobby said, standing to glare at the other male.

Jean tappedm onm on the hip and hissed “Sit down!”
The feelings of affection and caring and, she had to admit it, love,
flowing to her from Kurt and Kitty were almost overwhelming. She felt a heady rush of emotion that made
her sway slightly on her feet and she knew then and there that there would be
no Kitty without Kurt and vice versa. Damn
it. Now we have to work on getting him
to come up north. Fanfreakingtastic. The
others had gained the table by then and there were murmured general
introductions and greetings as seating was arranged. After the niceties were
over, Jean cleared her throat and said,
“I think we know why we’re all here, so let’s skip the melodrama and get right
to the point. We’re going to team up to
get this Death guy and we’re going to get along, right?”

Belladonna
raised a brow. “I don’t work with children,” she said in her lilting Cajun
accent.

“Pardon
me?” Kitty asked, narrowing her gaze from where she sat across from the
blonde. They had gotten along passably
the past few days but they were by no means friends.

“Not you,”
Belladonna snapped. “Him. What are you,
fifteen?” she asked Bobby rudely.

“Eighteen,
actually. And you’re….thirty?” he asked
sweetly, surreptitiously chilling her coffee with a seeming errant brush of his
fingers against the cup.

“Bel,” Remy
said, breaking in by laying his hand on the blonde’s arm, stemming her assured
outburst, “got fo’ year on ya…she twenny two.”

Rogue
sipped her café au lait and said demurely, “What’s your mutant power,
honey? Bitch?”

Remy
snorted. He liked a catty Southern
woman, Lord knew, but he also realized that this was neither the time nor the
place. “Bel ain’t like us…she de head
o’ de Guild o’ Assasins.”

Belladonna
smirked self-importantly. “So watch
your step, Skunk.”

Jean rolled
her eyes and turned her attention to Kitty, who was leaning in close to hear
something Kurt was whispering to her. “Scott,”
the red head said suddenly, “I think we need to start immediately, divide into
pairs and set out through the city to see what we can find. The Professor has given me a list of known
locations of mutant activity…present company excepted, of course…I suggest we
start with those.”

Scott
nodded. “Good idea. We know of some
places around the area that might give us some clues about this guy and what
his deal is…we should divide up with one of you to one of us. To be fair,” he said with a slight smile.

“I’m sure,”
Jean responded, suddenly aware that the table had fallen silent, each person
around it aware of the strange dynamic between herself and Scott. She was feeling oddly amenable to his gazes. “I’ll go with you, Remy and Rogue can pair
off and Bobby and…I’m sorry? What’s
your name? Nightshade?”[1]
Jean managed a passably innocent expression that made Kitty snicker into Kurt’s
shoulder.

“Belladonna,”
she named herself. “And why do I get
the kid?” She picked up her coffee to take a hot sip, but actually yelped as
the frigid liquid inside hit her lips and teeth.

“Because
I’m cool.” Bobby wiggled his eyebrows
and made the girls he knew laugh out loud.
“What about Kurt and Kitty?”

“They go to
Professor Xavier’s. Kurt’s welcome to
join one of our groups when he deposits Kitty, but she’s in no shape to come
with,” Jean said. The decision to let
Kurt take Kitty to their headquarters had been the subject of a long, drawn out
argument with Rogue. It finally came
down to, who wanted to miss the action?
No one. So Kurt got the
job.

“Sehr gut,”
Kurt said, blushing beneath his holographic disguise. “Kitty, would you like to leave now?”

“Yes,
please!” she said, struggling to stand up.
Her flushed cheeks and bright eyes gave away their intent. “Um…later!”


Belladonna
snorted. “Fucking great. They’re useless to us now that they figured
out how the swimsuit area works.”

Bobby
rolled his eyes. He knew he was in for
a difficult evening.

 

“Nada,”
Bobby sighed, popping his neck in the process.
“Dead ends everywhere…I thought you said that these leads were hot.”

Belladonna
sneered. “I said that they were
useful. Hot leads are nonexistent in
New Orleans. There’s an intricate
network here—everyone protects everyone else, come Hell or highwater.”

“Yeah,
well, whatever. I just know that it’s
eight o’clock at night, I’m starving, I need to pee and if you jiggle around in
front of me in that top anymore, I’m buying you a sweatshirt. It’s damned distracting.”

Belladonna
found it in herself to slap him.
Hard. A few tourists passing by
snickered and murmured speculation as Bobby rubbed his cheek and glared. “How dare you!” she hissed, turning on her
heel to march down the Vieux Carre[2],
her slip of a figure no more than a shadow weaving in and out of late-season
crowds.

Bobby
considerettintting her go and setting off on his own, reasoning that no one
could blame him if he ditched the annoying blonde. At least Rogue, Jean and Kitty would understand…They’re cool
like that. He sighed and set off
after her, knowing that this mission depended on the two teams working together
well. But I’ll be damned if I like
it.

 

Belladonna
thought she had given him the slip, dodging into the first store she saw with
the door standing open as so many did in the tourist season, the smells of
spices and promises of mystery revealed to tempt the unsuspecting into new ways
of thinking or feeling. It was, she
realized instantly, a voodoo shop. Not
one of the ones meant for Yankees visiting the city and looking for a voodoo
doll to take back or some goofer dust to impress the Ladies’ Sewing Circle back
home. An ancient mulatto woman leaned
on the counter as if the weight of the world were too much for her thin
shoulders, but her eyes bore into Belladonna with such a power that the blonde
nearly backed out of the store. No,
she told herself sternly, taking a tentative step towards the woman with the
wrinkled, café au lait skin, it’s a store and she’s the proprietor. Been in the Big Easy too long to be
superstitious, Bel. “I’m lookin’
for somethin’ in particular,” she said without preamble.

“You search
for Death.” The words were rich and
rolling, an unnamed accent coloring the voice.


Belladonna
caught the capital. “How do you know?”

“Maman
Brigitte[3]
know all sorta tings,” she said with a half-smile, revealing straight, white
teeth and a clucking dark tongue as she continued, “I know dat boy who follow
you be more important den you realize in yo’ life. An’ Maman Brigitte know what go on in de cemetery de other day…”
She moved around the counter, her white garments more a robe than a dress,
floating and flowing like a ghost around her.
“Maman Brigitte know dat you lookin’ in de wrong places…Death, like you
call ‘im, he ain’t gonna be found among the dead tings, is he? Death circles the Dead, even when dey still
walkin’ an’ talkin’ like you an’ me.” A
quick flicker of the woman’s eyes made Belladonna turn around. Behind her, in the doorway, stood Bobby,
looking faintly concerned. “Bon. You
both here now. Les go…” She turned and apparently expected
Belladonna and Bobby to follow her. She
disappeared behind a thick brown curtain hanging behind the counter. Her shadow pausing in wait.

“Well,”
Bobby said on a sigh. “Guess this is a
lead…” He pushed past Belladonna in the
narrow store, barely wide enough for two people to stand side by side, and
ducked behind the curtain.

“Bobby…get
back here!” she hissed. Reluctantly,
though she would never admit it, she followed him through the curtain and into
a dark, musty room that smelled of old spices and wet earth and time that had
passed without hesitation but lingered in memory. Bobby was staring down into an open trapdoor set in the floor,
frowning. “What?”

“I don’t
know…it could be a set up.”

“Who knows
we’re here? Who knows who we are?”
Belladonna snapped, pushing past Bobby then, eager to take the lead again and
not let him grow overconfident. She
lowered herself into the opening, her feet finding the smooth rungs of the
ladder after a brief flailing on her part.
She gave Bobby her best cool smile and disappeared into the
darkness. “Maman Brigitte?” she asked
softly, something making her keep quiet.
The room she stood in was dark, the only light filtering in from the
open door above her, weak and orange and not illuminating anything.

Bobby
dropped to the ground beside her, so close she could see him clearly. “What is this place?” Belladonna finally looked around and felt
her mouth open at what she saw. Skulls
lined the wall closest to her, barely discernable in the darkness, white heads
grinning anxiously. Bobby reached out
to touch the wall and drew back sharply.
“It’s wet and…and warm!”

“Warm?” she
asked, losing her pretense of irritation, “We’re underground. It can’t be warm.”

“Oh, it is
warm,” the old voice of Maman Brigitte said, almost laughingly, from somewhere
in the dark. “Warm as blood…warm as
life…”

“Great,”
Bobby muttered, “a fucking nutcase…”

“Dat may
be,” a new voice, deep and rich and rolling like the sea, intoned. “Mais she be de one leadin’ ya to me, eh?”

Belladonna
felt a painful chill run down her spine and unconsciously edged closer to
Bobby, who stepped half in front of her protectively. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“Dat ain’
important,” the male voice said, laughing loudly, echoing off the walls of the
chamber.

“Oh, yes it
is,” Bobby said sharply, wishing for once that he had his friend Jubilee’s
powers and could light up the area with plasma so they could see who they were
talking to.

“In dat
case,” the male said slowly, sounding closer.
“You call me Baron Samedi.”[4]

Belladonna
stifled a gasp at the name. Anyone who
lived in New Orleans and consorted with the fringes of society was bound to
hear the name Baron Samedi at least once in their life, a boogey man sometimes
and others, a powerful sort of god.
Either way, he was feared. She
involuntarily closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath as a deep pocket of
shadows began to resolve into a form. She heard and felt Bobby’s strangled cry
of surprise as Baron Samedi resolved into sight. She looked and there he was: dark and tall, face painted like a
skull (Maybe, she thought dimly, it really was a skull and not a man
under there…) A hiss and snap lit
his cigar, the pungent smoke filling the chamber. “Maman Brigitte,” Belladonna said, “you didn’t introduce us to
your friend.”

“Maman
Brigitte,” Baron Samedi laughed. “She
ain’t a frien’ o’ mine…we jus’…call us family!”

“Whatever
you are,” Bobby said, “we came seeking help finding a…person…who’s been
wreaking havoc in the cemeteries around here.”

“In
dat case,” Baron Samedi said, disappearing again into the darkness, “I be yo’
man…”

“Good,”
Belladonna said, stepping out from around Bobby, “let’s go then.”

“Not
so fast,” Maman Brigitte said kindly, yet sternly, “you under our roof, you
under our control!”

“What
are you talking about?” Bobby snapped.

“Shhhh….” Belladonna and Bobby slumped to the floor in
a heap, darkness seeping over their vision and a pain spreading through their
chests.



[1] Belladonna
and Deadly Nightshade are related plants.
Both deadly poison. Wahoo. And, just to further your knowledge, lol,
the potato is a member of the deadly nightshade family.

[2] Part of the
French Quarter. It means Old Square,
what was originally the French part of NOLA back in the day.

[3] Very powerful
VooDoo Loa, married as it were to Baron Samedi. Who we will discuss
later…lol. Maman Brigitte protects
graves marked with a cross within cemeteries.


[4] I love this
guy. Really. He’s a Loa of the Guede in Voodoo and Santeria and is represented
by a top hat clad skeleton or man with a skeleton face, smoking a cigar and
drinking rum. He protects cemeteries and is like Death. Powerful. Very very powerful. His offerings are rum and tobacco.