James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare - but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them. - James Baldwin

Chapter Nine

Mystique made her way down the stairs slowly, muddy-headed and unsteady on her feet, one hand clinging to the banister. Beneath the steady, maddening drumbeat of her hangover, her thoughts were a broiling turmoil of panic and self-disgust. She was a complete disreputable mess this morning, and she had no illusions about her ability to hide that from the others. Worst still, she was by no means certain that she'd be able to perform as expected during the day's mission; she'd always had trouble maintaining a disguise when she was feeling tired or sick, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this miserably exhausted.

Her stomach did sick cartwheels out of sync with the throbbing in her head as she considered her options. She couldn't fake sick; Azazel already knew better, and it wouldn't take Emma more than a second to figure the same out for herself. She could tell the truth – she'd fucked up, gotten truly and well plastered for the first time in her life, and now wasn't at all fit to work – but the thought of how badly that would disappoint Erik terrified her; he had a way of writing off people who had disappointed him.

The other option was to try to tough her way through the day, but that felt more grossly irresponsible than even begging off would be. If she messed up – if she messed up while everyone was counting on her and her eyes flashed yellow or her fingertips turned blue... The results didn't bear thinking, Charles's voice said in her head.

She was at the bottom of the stairs now, and she could hear voices in the hall, up around the corner, Emma and Erik working out some final logistical points. What am I going to do? she wondered, steeling herself to go around the corner.

Think about where you need to be in the morning first before you get sloshed next time, I should hope, Emma's voice replied in her head. Shall I?

Shall you what? Mystique thought back, suspicious. She could feel Emma moving around in her head, adjusting things; the pain in her head receded to a dull and distance ache, and some of her fatigue seemed to drop away. Oh God – thank you, Mystique thought, only mildly disquieted to learn that it was that easy for Emma to tamper with her internal brain chemistry.

Emma didn't reply, so Mystique rounded the corner and joined her, Azazel and Erik, who had his own plans in Santiago del Estero that day. The others were already set to go, and though they'd all seen her transform before they watched her with a sort of fascination that made her feel both proud an a little too exposed as she took on Shaw's form. Erik especially was staring at her strangely, his face a guarded mask that might have hidden anything. When he was that she was staring back at him he looked away.

Emma looked her over appreciatively, and – more out of fussiness than anything else, Mystique believed – advised a few tweaks to the hair and clothing. And then they were ready to go, and it was not lost on Mystique that, when they all linked hands, Erik ended up on the opposite side of the line from her. Azazel had no more than dropped them in a dark alley and transported himself away when Erik too left, turning down the corner of the alley with no more than a raised hand in farewell. He was dressed in a white linen shirt, a jacket poised negligently on the edge of his shoulder, and through the thin cloth Mystique could see how tense his shoulders and the muscles of his back were.

This thing with Shaw needs to be put to bed, Mystique thought, brushing Shaw's brown hair back from his high forehead. Then, when Emma took Mystique's arm and curled it around her waist, leaning in against Mystique's flat chest like the space was custom-made for her, she thought, And not just with Erik.

Don't go reading too much into this, Emma projected. It's just how anyone who'd seen Sebastian and myself together would expect us to act, but Mystique wasn't at all sure that was all there was to it. Emma is sad, she heard Azazel say again, and tried to keep the memory soft, so Emma wouldn't pick up on it.

Perched very prettily on Mystique's arm, like nothing so much as a glittering ornament, Emma lead her our of the alleyway and onto a crowded and dusty street. Somehow the city was not as foreign as Mystique had expected. She could see farmers leading heavily laden donkeys across lines of traffic and bicycles, and some Indian women were seated on the ground at the edges of the road, selling souvenirs that they had displayed on colorful woven blankets, and the earth was golden and red, but there was much of Europe to the city as well. Many of the buildings were of white granite, huge and domineering. Most of the people she saw on the street were white, professional men dressed as Erik had been and groups of tourists. She could hear people speaking Spanish, but also a great deal of English and German as well as other languages that she did not recognize.

The tourists seemed to have a talent for getting in the way of everyone else's business. They were loud and disruptive – though not intentionally, she didn't think – and they had a way of stopping to stare at things or people suddenly, disrupting the flow of foot traffic. If not for Emma, Mystique had a suspicion that she might have found herself being just as obnoxious as the others, because the sights and sounds and smells of the place where overwhelming. But Emma lead her through the tangle of bodies and animals and vehicles with easy poise, without giving the slightest impression to onlookers that she was not the one being guided by her man.

On one street corner an ancient Indian woman was perched on a rickety chair in front of a small wooden table, on which she had displayed a dozen necklaces. The chains were only cheap copper, but attached to each chain was a gleaming piece of polished amber. "These are so beautiful!" Emma said, and suddenly her voice, which was usually as sharp and direct as a scalpel blade had become bubbly... almost silly. We are supposed to be acting like tourists, Mystique reminded herself, but still she wondered which was the real act.

The proprietor had a rounded face with high cheekbones, and brown skin that was networked with wrinkles and as dry and hard as old leather, and her eyes had lighted up at Emma's exclamation. Emma addressed her now in halting Spanish. Though Mystique could not tell exactly what she was saying, she knew that Emma's Spanish was better than she was letting on to the old woman, because she had watched Emma and Janos holding rapid-fire conversations.

The Indian woman smile widely at her, displaying a mouthful of surprisingly well-preserved teeth, given her event age. She seemed to appreciative that Emma had made the effort, and said, "Gracias," before switching to English to address herself to Mystique. "You want to buy a beautiful necklace for your beautiful girl, yes?"

And Emma had turned her eyes up at Mystique and said, "Please, darling?" and a strange feeling had gripped Mystique as she'd reached into a pocket that was not really a pocket but rather an extension of herself and took out the wallet Erik had given her before they'd left the headquarters. No matter how important it was to maintain their act, this was all a bit too weird - parading around with Emma in the form of her dead lover – but there was something else about it... about seeing the flirtatious pleading in those blue eyes as Emma looked up at her that Mystique liked.

I don't know –, she thought at Emma, unfolding the wallet. The "I.D.s" inside there were nothing more than squares of cardboard cut from one of Angel's cigarette boxes – Emma would make them look like whatever they needed to look like to whoever was looking at them – but the bills were real.

The two bills on the top, Emma answered back. If she tries to haggle, give her one more of the same, but don't go higher than that.

But the old woman did not try to haggle. She took the bills, then picked up one of the necklaces – Mystique thought that it was the nicest one, adored with a tear-drop shaped piece of amber which had no visible imperfections – and placed it in Mystique's hand.

Emma turned her head to the side, lifting up her hair with one delicate hand, baring the back of her slim, milk-white neck, and Mystique had bent slightly to fasten the change around her neck, brushing back some stray strands of hair to keep them from becoming caught in the clasp. The hands Mystique was wearing were bigger than she was used to, but they did not feel awkward to her. In the coming years she would hold the form of many people she found despicable – people she would come to hate even more than she hated Shaw now, such as Robert Kelley – but as unhappy as she felt in their bodies she never felt as though she did not have complete control over these forms.

She was struck again by how much she liked this, her hands brushing the back of that graceful neck, above the smooth and bare shoulders. As Mystique drew her hands away she was struck by the desire to run the side of her thumb along Emma's cheek, and did so, telling herself that it was all part of her act.

Runs in the family, does it? Emma's voice said lightly in her head, though she didn't know exactly what Emma meant by that she felt herself blushing tremendously.

It would be another two decades before she even heard the term "bisexual" and when she finally did she would embrace it for the explanatory force it carried, but by then she would not really need it; it would not be the same as the epiphany moment when Charles had first used the word "Mutant" to describe what they both were. By then she would have grown as comfortable with her sexuality has she had her natural blue skin, and indeed she would view it as another aspect of her mutation; she never felt as though she was completely herself when limited to being only one thing. But today this was an aspect of herself that she was barely aware existed, and now she only felt vaguely puzzled by herself.

"Él es muy tímido," the old woman had exclaimed to Emma when she saw Mystique's redden face.

Still affecting a poor grasp of Spanish, Emma had paused, as though working out what the woman had said, and then she replied, "Sí, él es inocente como una colegiala."

They walked on, and soon they came to the bank - a columned monstrosity of white granite – and went inside, and the entire heist went so smoothly that Mystique wondered why she'd let herself get so worked up about it. She had simply gone to the teller and introduced herself as Sebastian Shaw, and when asked to produce I.D. she had handed over of of the squares of cardboard, the word "Marlboro" printed across its center – Angel did not smoke feminine cigarettes, she said that they had no flavor - and Emma made the man see what she wanted him to see, and he turned over the key to the safety deposit box to Mystique. They'd gone to the vault, and once they'd been left alone Emma had opened Shaw's safety deposit box and dumped its glittering contents into her purse. And then they had gone outsider again, and it had all been as simple as that.

When they were on the street again, Mystique had turned to Emma and asked, "What now?"

"Now we meet Erik for lunch," she said, and looked up at Mystique, her teeth worrying at her lower lip. "You should change first." Abruptly, she dropped Mystique's arm and stepped to the side, putting space between them.

Did she love him? Mystique wondered suddenly, struck by the idea. The thought had not occurred to her before then; she had not, up until this afternoon, conceived of Emma as someone who might love; and even now the idea that anyone could have loved Shaw, knowing – as Emma must have – what he had done seemed preposterous. Nonetheless, she wondered.

And on heels of that thought came, How can she and Erik even look one another in the eyes?

Leave it alone, Emma said, and the voice in her head was ice all over again. Go change. Now.

Red-faced again, Mystique ducked down an alley. She looked around carefully before transforming. There was a piece of broken mirror hanging for a nail in the wall, and she glanced at herself, taking in the effect; hazel-nut skin and brown eyes deep enough to sink into, set in a round face with high cheekbones that were sharp enough to cut, and black hair that fell down past her waist. Looking like this, she imagined that she could have been taken for the old woman's granddaughter. She had felt as though she could fit in here like this, wrapped in a simulation of the same garments she'd seen the native women wearing.

When she came out again and Emma saw her, the other woman looked nearly apoplectic. You speak Spanish now? she demanded silently. You're completely fluent in the dialect that they speak here? How about Araucano? Mystique did not even know what Araucano was – she guessed from context that it must be an Indian language. What's the name of your tribe? Your family?

As though to prove Emma's point, a handsome man with cheekbones to match the ones Mystique had copied passed her by, saying something that sounded casual and appreciative in a language that Mystique had never even heard before. She could only smile demurely and look away. The man went by, pausing briefly when he saw the way Emma was glaring at her, something hard coming into his eyes, but then he kept walking.

If you can't pass don't try, Emma said. There's a reason we're supposed to look like tourists.

I'm sorry – I didn't think -

I know you didn't, Emma projected back. But I keep hoping that you'll start at some point.

"I'll change again," Mystique said, returning to the alley, and when she came back again she was a brunette, plain and a bit chunky, no one anyone would look at twice.

Jesus Christ, Emma thought, and the voice in her head just sounded exhausted. Why didn't you just transform yourself into a kicked puppy? Mystique didn't answer. She didn't trust herself to answer. "I'm trying to help you. I swear to God I am."

"I know you are," Mystique said, and she believed that; Emma was abrasive and mean and catty as hell, and there was something dark and wounded inside of her, but she was trying to teach Mystique the things she was going to need to know.

"You could be something unstoppable," Emma said. "The potential is there, I can see it in you," and that had left Mystique feeling a little frightened of herself but also proud.

And then Emma lead her into the German district of the city – there were many tens of thousands of ethnic Germans in this country, Emma told her when Mystique wondered, some of their families had been here for two hundred years though many were more recent immigrants – and they went inside a small tavern and found Erik, already drunk and clutching a beer stein in white-knuckled hands, glaring at every man in the establishment with brooding suspicion, every muscle in his body tensed with the potentiality for violence, and Emma and Mystique had worked together carefully to coax him into leaving, and once he was out in the sunlight again he seemed somewhat better. And they had walked on together, killing time because Azazel wouldn't be picking them up until after dark, and Emma had snuggled up against Erik while they walked, and she had looked at them and hadn't been completely sure which of the two she was jealous of, and she had thought about Azazel and wondered what he was planning to show her when they got back to Chicago.

And despite the rough patches and the mistakes she had made, despite her continuing disquiet about the jangling contents of Emma purse and despite Erik's black mood, she thought things were going pretty well. She'd been scared but she'd managed to do what had been asked of her, had shown that she could carry her own weight. She was thinking that she could really make things work with these two, as well as the rest of the Brotherhood, that she could map out the damaged terrain of their hearts and minds and learn to traverse it safely.

And while she was thinking about that, Erik and Emma were walking a step in front of her, and they went past the dusty shop window without even glancing in it, and Mystique had almost done the same, but something had caught her eye and she'd turned back quickly, taking in what stood in the shop's window with a sharp intake of breath. Erik and Emma had gone on for another ten steps, and then Emma had felt the red and broiling waves of shocked rage coming off Mystique, and had turned back toward her, pulling Erik along by the arm, and by the time they had joined her at the window something had broken inside Mystique that would never be right again.

There was a dead Mutant child in the window, mounted and stuffed like a trophy animal.