"Oops…the banister broke and he fell three floors to impale himself on the ice statue in the foyer. How tragic."
8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8
Chapter One: Not All Lucky Charms Fit In Your Pocket
8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8
Chicago, Illinois 1962
"So I told him, no dice. Pay up or I take his sweet daughter." The owner of the voice motioned for another card and tossed a few more dollars into the pot at the center of the table. His physique once held a higher muscle to fat ratio but he'd slipped to the other end of the spectrum, his body now resembling gelatin that, once set, had then warmed and spread into a gooey mess. How it was contained within the slick sharkskin suit was anyone's guess.
The words were met with gruff laughter as more cards were dealt and laid down on the felted table. No one cast eyes at the woman who stood behind Jello Man, though that was not what any present would call him to his face. That she was the topic of this particular conversation, they all knew.
"So, Paulie, what did her daddy say?" asked the man catty-corner to Jello Man, sporting his own wall-eye.
Paulie Horovitz (or Jello Man, as the woman standing to his back-right called him in her mind) smirked. "Told me that I could take her. As long as she paid off his debt, he was happy with the arrangement." Paulie glanced over his shoulder, taking in the loose ebony mane that hung past the girl's shoulders. "Isn't that right, Lucky?"
"Lucky?" asked one of the other men, this one with a jagged scar down the left side of his face, tracing from his hairline to his jawline and leaving his eye with a droopy appearance. "What's so lucky about this piece of tail?"
Paulie grinned. He knew that the woman behind him (hell, she was younger than his own daughter and twice as pretty, though his Annabelle would have clawed her eyes out to hear it) hated to be talked about like this with his crew. Especially when she'd heard the story at least a dozen times since he'd taken her as collateral against her father's debt. Not that he'd done anything more than kiss her…somehow something always happened to keep him from taking her virtue. "Everything, Carmine. When you've got her on your arm, you can't lose. Her daddy should have remembered that—then he wouldn't now owe me even more."
The men all watched her, greed and lust warring in their eyes. The target of their gaze gulped and crossed her arms over her midsection, unknowingly amplifying the attention that her generous assets were getting.
"Guess that you can't fit all lucky charms in your pocket, eh, Eric?" asked a new voice with a decided British accent, one not seated at the table with the gangsters.
Paulie frowned, pulling the mangled cigar from between his leathery lips. His yellowed teeth ground together as he faced the two men who stood in the doorway of the backroom. "And who would you be, friend?" His brown eyes narrowed as he scanned between them. "I don't recall inviting any Limies." The chortles of his companions caused the gangster to smirk.
Eric Lensherr arched a brow, blue eyes piercing. "We are not here for you, nor are we your friends. We have come to talk to the young lady." He waved a long-fingered hand airily at the woman watching wide-eyed from behind Paulie's shoulder. "You can come with us, right now, Miss Maguire, and never have to worry about these men again."
The men in question started to rise only, as one, to suddenly go slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. "Continue, Eric," suggested Charles Xavier, two fingers pressed lightly to his own temple as he gazed with concentration at the mobsters.
The young woman tentatively stepped towards the newcomers. "Why? I'm no one special," she whispered, hugging her arms around herself. Though Eric had to wonder if it was partly due to the rather risqué negligee that she was wearing. He might never be able to look at stockings and garters the same way.
Eric shrugged and glanced at Charles. "Well, then, perhaps we should leave you to these men. We were under the impression that you were someone very special." He smirked.
8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8