The third portion of this story includes somewhat disturbing violence/torture and sexual situations. You could probably skip it and still follow the story if you don't want to read it. Stop at "Frenzy had..." and start up again where it begins "Joanna gasped..."

I'm living in an age
That calls darkness light
Though my language is dead
Still the shapes fill my head
I'm living in a age
Who's name I don't know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
-My Body is a Cage, Arcade Fire

Joanna was tired. Tired in body, tired in mind, and tired of listening to people talk. She left Rogue, Bobby, and Logan in the kitchen and went back upstairs. They were still grilling Bobby on what he and Remy had gotten up to that afternoon. Bobby was acting weird and sweaty and nervous about the whole thing. His story was bare-boned at best, something about touring a local cemetery famous for fantastic statuary. For four hours. She didn't buy it, but Joanna was done with explanations. She didn't want to hear anything else. Especially about Gambit, and whatever was wrong with him.

If there was anything she hated more than people being sad, it was people being sick. Emotions and illness weren't something that could be resolved with a good kick in the ass. If she was going to be honest with herself, it was the helplessness she felt that made her so angry. She kicked open the door to her guest room and kicked it shut again behind her. She changed out of her black suit and into yoga pants and a tank top, leaving her suit in a rumpled ball in her travel bag.

It was damn hot. She lay on top of the bed covers and stared at the dark ceiling. The house was empty except for the other X-Men. Mercy said she was taking the children on a field trip to the museum...at twelve o'clock in the morning. They'd melted into the night in their dark Guild clothing, the kids looking excited in the way kids do when they are getting out of their regular lessons. With the weird sleeping patterns these people kept, she could stay in her room until two the next afternoon.

Even though she felt physically exhausted, Joanna's brain kept working on and on. She couldn't sleep and her eyes remained resolutely open. Remy was in his room at the end of the hall. Briefly, she entertained the thought of going to him. Half of her wanted to slap him. She was uncomfortable with what the other half wanted...to comfort? Or to be comforted?

She must have drifted off for a few minutes, half in and half out of sleep, because she suddenly found her eyelids flying open. Her heart was thundering in her chest. Something moved in the hall. A shadow had disturbed the faint line of light at the base of the door. Someone was walking past. She sat up slowly. Another shadow appeared and came to a stop outside her door. Joanna held her breath, unsure of why she felt so frightened. Whoever was just outside moved away. She let out her breath.

Moving slowly and silently, she walked to the door. She pressed her ear against the wood, but heard nothing. She touched the doorknob and turned it, careful not to make a sound. She felt she was being ridiculous. It was probably just one of the other X-Men, making their way to their rooms. Except the shadows had moved in the opposite direction, towards Remy's room. Or it could be that Pierce guy, he moved so silently...but there were two figures. Why did she feel such a sense of dread? Joanna opened her door a crack and peered into the hall.

It was dark, but there was still enough light filtering from the foyer below to see by. At the end of the hall she could see the door to Remy's room. In front of the door standing before the hall mirror were two cloaked figures. Their cloaks hung in such a way that made them seem to hang in the air like wraiths. She could see the line of their emaciated shoulders through the fabric of their cloaks. Joanna could hear her heart pounding in her ears. One of the figures moved its cloak back, revealing a thin arm. The arm drew back slowly, sliding something free from its belt. Joanna saw a long stiletto flash in the dim light.

She threw open her door and rushed into the hall. For an instant, she caught a glimpse of a gruesome visage, mottled skin pulled tight in a rictus grin, eyes glinting from the darkness of its cowl. One of the figures turned in one liquid motion and tossed something into her face. Only she didn't see anything fly from its bony fingers. She drew breath to shout a warning, and instead a sensation of numbness flowed into her chest. The creeping feeling of coldness flooded her face and neck, paralyzing her. She began to fall forward when the figure moved with a swiftness that belied its apparent frailness. The figure clawed at her shirtfront with a wiry strength before her knees could hit the floorboards.

She couldn't breathe. The numbness was moving down her limbs. It was cold. She was lowered, helpless to the carpet. Her vision receded into a tiny pinpoint of light. Then that too vanished.

Remy was sitting at the desk his father once used to conduct the business of the Thieves' Guild. He had three items before him. There was package wrapped in brown paper with his initials on it: R L. Beside it was the hardbound notebook Bobby had stolen from Tome. Next to that was a file folder he'd stolen from the Guild archives.

Remy knew what was in the file folder, so he reopened it. There was the agreement in which possession of goods was exchanged for a sum of money. There were two signatures, one being the given name of The Antiquary, the other the name of a woman. The description of the goods was not explicit in the contract. There was instead a document appended to the agreement, a Certificate of Live Birth. Remy smoothed it with his hand. There was one fact that he found comforting about the document, and that was that it was for the state of Louisiana. At least he knew he could call New Orleans his native home.

In the space for Child's Name it read: Baby Boy. He touched his birthdate. He was only a few months older than the day Tante Mattie had declared as his birthday, the day Jean-Luc became his legal guardian seven years after his birth. He'd been twenty-six for the last two months.

The hospital Jean-Luc had taken him from was also what he thought to be true, even if Jean-Luc hadn't stolen Remy from there but in fact had brokered a sale. No father's name had been given. The mother's name made his stomach tighten. But the thing that really set his heart pounding was the checked box in line four.

"THIS BIRTH:," in cold black capital letters followed by three boxes. "Single. Twin. Triplet."

There was an X in front of the box for Twin. "If TWIN, mark first or second." Second was marked.

He was a twin. He had a sibling. The words swam before his eyes. So rarely had he allowed himself to think about the family he hadn't had: mother, father, siblings. Suddenly, he had a brother, a blood relation.

He closed the file and held his hand over it. I'll find you, he thought. His heart leapt at the thought. He had an idea of where he could start. When he'd been in the archives amidst the old ledgers, he had gone through the tithing records. It recorded every tithe given to their Benefactress Candra for several centuries. There was only one item, one tithe given, for the year of Remy's birth. One infant boy.

He turned to the book. It was brownish-red, like dried blood. Remy opened it. It was a hand-written journal. He saw drawings of the familiar emblems he'd grown up with in the Guild. The LeBeau Sun who carried the Crown of the Old Kingdom and the rise of a new dawn. Alouette clan was the Bird of Morning, who carried the promise of peace in its beak. The Marceaux clan was represented by a sheaf of wheat with three sickles, representing their role as Harvest Masters and the gathering of knowledge. Potier was a golden pot, for drinking the Elixir of Life that prolonged their lives and the future promise of life everlasting. The Lapin Hares represented the agile mind and the thrill of pursuit.

Remy looked over the handwritten words. He wondered where this book had come from. There were spots of blood on the interior cover. There was also the crest of an Assassin family name: Chicault. Chicault plus blood equalled one thing in his mind; the vampire Francois Chicault that the vampire hunter Blade had slain in the Velvet Ministry itself. That vampire had more a thirst for knowledge than blood, and planned to spend his eternity uncovering the secrets of the Old Kingdom. These must be his notes. So like Tome and Hoard to keep something like this for themselves. Remy had pretty much written off the whole Old Kingdom thing when it turned out he'd been prophesied to bring about peace on Earth by obliterating all life on it. Remy's life-goals were humbler than being the harbinger of Heaven on Earth. First he'd like to maybe try to go to church on Sundays again. So long as the Saints weren't playing that day. Also he'd like to be the greatest thief of all time. He recalled that Xavier had once told him to set attainable life-goals, so Remy amended it to "greatest thief of the millennia."

Most of the words in the book were in a language Remy barely understood, there were so few Gallic words still spoken. At the center of the book was a stanza of text that was framed with a drawing of keys. Keys were significant to the Guilds. As a child, if Remy had been caught not doing what he'd been instructed he'd be admonished with the familiar phrase: "The keys to the Kingdom won't be held by idle hands." Idleness was one of many things frowned upon in the Guilds.

He skimmed over the text, then tried to sound out the words. He felt his eyes begin to water as he read. He was more than halfway through when he began to sneeze. He scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He put his index finger to the text and continued to read. Why did this sound familiar? He sneezed again, but not before he heard a soft thud come from the hallway outside his door.

He still had a handkerchief in his pocket, so he sneezed and coughed into that. He stood, still thinking about the stanza. He tried to puzzle out the last few lines. He walked to the door, thinking that there was someone on the opposite side. It felt as if perhaps another Guild thief was nearby, but that was impossible. They had all gone to work. Maybe Rothko wanted in. Remy had left him down in the kitchen with Logan.

He opened the door just as another sneeze caused him to spasm forward. It was a fortunate thing, because when the blade came down it scored across his chest instead of plunging into his throat. He felt the hot sting of pain run from his clavicle across his pectoral muscle. He looked up through watering eyes to see the cloaked figure readying the stiletto for another strike. Remy's left arm shot out, seizing the figure's forearm and forcefully jerking downward as his right hand came up, grasped the man by his chin and forcefully jerked it in the opposite direction, snapping the creature's frail neck with a crack. As it dropped lifelessly to the carpet, Remy's hand slid down it's thin arm to grasp the stiletto just as the second figure flew forward. Remy blocked the fall of the blade it wielded with his forearm and drove his own stiletto in between the creature's ribs. He covered its mouth with a hand and held it against him as the thing slowly sank to the ground. When he was sure it was dead, he let it drop to the carpet.

Joanna was laying in the hallway. He released his hold on the blade and dashed to her side. Her eyes were open and her face a frozen mask of fear. He touched her cheek. She felt stiff and cold. He swore. She had been cursed. His blood dripped from the wound in his chest onto her own. He saw it pool in the hollow of her throat. Words trickled into his head, settling into the dark recesses of his mind. Words from the book. References to blood...to keys...to life. Something turned in his mind. There came that satisfying sound like when you'd just picked a lock and the door could now be opened.

And then there was light.

Frenzy had inflicted a lot of pain on a lot of people in her short life, but never before had she heard the sounds of agony that were coming from the man before her. He was crouched on the plush carpeting with his arms wrapped around his midsection as he howled until he could no longer for lack of breath.

"What are you doing to him?" Frenzy forced herself to ask.

Candra looked at Frenzy down the length of her perfect nose. "I am manipulating his viscera," she replied matter-of-factly. "Quite painful, as you can see...so I am also preventing him from losing consciousness. I wanted to leave an impression on my darling pet. I only hope Remy can remember this lesson for next time."

Frenzy had first met Remy, who went by Gambit, several months ago in the States. She had been tasked with what she believed at the time to be a simple job guarding a significant piece of Stark technology, stolen of course from its proper owners. The equipment had been hidden in a train car and was to be transported by rail to its ultimate destination, where it would then be transferred to the hands of HYDRA. It should have been an easy mission with a hefty paycheck. Instead an explosion had uncoupled the car from the engine.

Dragged by the weight of the cars behind, the car bearing the Joanna and the equipment had quickly lost momentum. A single man had dropped through the hatch in the roof, then bounced around the rail car as if on springs. Frenzy had fired multiple rounds at the intruder while trying to avoid hitting any of the expensive equipment she'd been tasked to protect. He had easily evaded her gunfire as he bounded from one side of the car to the next. He had slapped her firearm from her grip with a bo staff. She realized too late that the thief had attached multiple tow lines to the equipment. His hands had flown out to either side trailing bright red and yellow lights, and twin explosions had blown the top of the train car open. The tow line had grown taught, and from above came the sound of a helicopter blades slapping the air. The thief had launched himself into the air, grasped the tow line with one hand, and blew her a kiss with the other as the helicopter rose taking him and the technology with it. It had taken all of ten minutes.

She'd lost that job with the promise that she'd never find work States-side again. Then the summons came from a potential new employer in Paris, France. She'd arrived at an estate owned by a powerful woman named Candra. When Frenzy was ushered into her main chambers, Candra had looked her up and down with a glare of cold distain. The thief stood at her side. She easily recognized him by his glowing red eyes and the grin that split his face in two. Candra had turned to the thief.

"You didn't tell me Frenzy was a woman," she had said cooly.

He smiled insolently at her. Candra backhanded him across the face. He responded by laughing darkly.

He certainly wasn't laughing now.

That was months ago and since Frenzy found herself paired with Gambit on several missions. He was talented but stupidly reckless, never satisfied with simply completing the mission as directed. He purposefully made things more difficult simply for the thrill of it. It pleased Candra not at all.

Candra was a cold-hearted bitch. She was also terrifying. She possessed a powerful telekinetic ability that could work down to the molecular level. Apparently satisfied with the results of her punishment, she released her hold on her victim and he slumped to the floor, moaning.

"Remove him from my sight," she instructed Frenzy with a dismissive wave of her hand. She turned and walked from the room, regal as a queen.

"Get up," Frenzy told the prone form on the carpet while nudging him with the toe of her boot. When he didn't move, she squatted and seized his arm and began dragging him upright. "Why don't you just leave her?" she asked irritably.

"It's not as easy as dat," he said into his lap.

"The pay can't be that good," Frenzy said.

Gambit gasped as he unfolded from the carpet. He pulled himself free from her grasp. "She don't pay me a'tall," he said.

"So you work pro bono?" Frenzy said snidely. "Or is it all the fantastic sex?"

Gambit scowled at her as he regained his feet. "'S not about sex. It's only about power," he said.

"You think I can't hear what the two of you get up to when she's not torturing you?" Joanna asked.

Gambit turned away from her, straightening his back with a sharp exhalation of pain.

"Maybe..." Frenzy began, then grasped his left wrist. "Maybe you don't leave her because you like it."

Gambit tried to twist himself free from her grip. He swung at her with his right arm, which she caught against her side and pinned with her upper arm. They were both of a similar height, but she easily outmatched him in strength as well as weight. She forced him backward and he scrambled to keep his feet as he backpedaled. The breath went out of him as she slammed him back into the wall.

Frenzy put her face very near to Gambit's. "Admit it," she said against his mouth. "Say how much you love being smacked around. You sick little puppy."

"Let go a'me," he told her, his eyes flashing.

She pushed herself against him, her arm that pinned his came up and she pressed her fingers into his stomach. Even through the Kevlar armor he wore, he could feel the pressure of her knuckles in his gut. He cried out and struggled helplessly in her grip. "Let go!" he yelled.

Frenzy felt as though flames had burned up her arms and along her shoulders. She yelped and threw herself backwards. She couldn't be burned! She was invulnerable! Her eyes widened with surprise more than pain.

"You burned me!" she exclaimed.

"No," he said and reached forward to clutch her shirtfront. "I burned your uniform." His hand jerked downward and her uniform shredded along her shoulders.

Frenzy gasped and held her hands to the ruined straps of her bra. "You fucking bastard!"

He tossed the remains of her clothing to the ground. "So you are a woman under dere after all," he said with a sly smile.

Frenzy let her arms drop. She would not let him humiliate her. She tore off the remnants of her uniform top and let them fall to the floor. His smile grew wider.

In a fury, she launched herself at him, aiming a fist towards his abdomen. He managed to sidestep her and her fist punched into the wall with a crunch. His arm wrapped around her shoulders, the other went around her waist. The fingers of his hand gripped the curve of her buttock. His tongue went into her ear just before her back hit the wall.

She yelped and threw him away from her. He trotted backwards, laughing. Frenzy scrubbed the feeling of his tongue from her ear with the back of her wrist.

"You put your tongue out at me again and I'll rip it from your mouth!" she yelled.

He seized the back of his half-mask and pulled it over his head while shaking out his sweat-dampened hair. Laughing, he said: "And why would you deny yourself the privilege of enjoying my tongue a second time?"

"You think you're any good, jailbait?" she asked him, pointing a finger at his chest. "You're just a punk kid!"

He grinned at her. "Candra's been around for awhile now...might be she's learned me a few tricks."

"Like some scrawny boy like you could do anything for me?"

He uncoupled the buckles that held his chest armor in place. "Not all of me is so boyish," he said. Without his armor, he was even thinner than she thought. He had the long lean muscles of a gymnast. His chest and stomach were mottled with old and new bruises. Portions of his skin appeared shiny and new, as if he'd been burned.

"I prefer my men...bigger," she said.

He took two strides forward to bring himself in front of her. "I prefer my women...satisfied," he said, his lips very close to her own. She could feel the heat radiating off of his body against her own bare flesh.

"You've got your work cut out for you then," she replied.

She couldn't see his smile but saw how it lit up his eyes. They glowed like banked coals. His fingertips traced the lines of her shoulders, then trailed lower, touching the tops of her breasts, then lower to come to rest on her hips. She inhaled as he slid down her body, hands, lips, and teeth brushing against her skin. He was on his knees in front of her and she towered over him. His tongue flirted with her navel and she sucked in a breath and took the hair at the nape of his neck into her fist.

His fingers looped through the laces of her boots, untying the knots. "One," he said, and lifted her leg by pressing his hand behind her knee. He slid her leg free of her boot. "Two," he said, and the second boot followed the first. His hands went to the waist of her uniform and pulled down. "Three."

She slid down the wall, her shoulders bracing her against it. She still hand her hand in his hair, guiding him against her. Frenzy's weight was supported by her thighs, until after several minutes the muscles in her legs began to tremble. Her head tilted back against the wall and she gasped. She pulled him away and let herself fall to her knees. He was now laying on the carpet under her. Frenzy told herself she should get up, take her boots in either hand, and walk away now. Claim her prize and go. That was before Gambit leaned forward, put a hand to the back of her neck and kissed her mouth.

Withdrawing he said: "Your mouth tastes sweeter than it sounds, ma doucette."

She pinned his wrists above his head and kissed him again. She drew back along his body, freed his belt buckle, and jerked his uniform halfway down his legs. Now Gambit was trapped, hobbled, and completely at her mercy. She threatened him with her teeth and he sucked in a breath. She could hurt him badly now, or she could do the opposite. She continued her ministrations on him until she began to feel light-headed. His words were incoherent and hands clawed at the plush carpet.

She moved over him and straddled his waist.

"Now you're de one who's got work t'do, chere," he said.

When she lowered herself onto him, his head tilted back and he moaned low in his throat. She rested he heel of her hand on the base of his throat, let her fingers encircle his neck. When she moved, he rose up to meet her. Each joining was pleasure that bordered on pain. His fingers gripped her hips. She called out and fell over him, as he continued to move under her.

"You're not giving up yet, are you?" he asked, turning her to her side. "I'm not goin' down wit'out a fight."

Several moments later, she found herself laying on her stomach with her cheek pressed to the carpet. She vaguely remembered letting him talk her into this position. She didn't remember letting him talk her into that other thing. Now she was weakly spasming on the floor, a long groan coming from her throat. She felt him press his forehead between her shoulder blades as he spent himself against her. Gambit rolled to his side and onto the floor beside her.

"If you do that again," she mumbled against the carpet, "I will kill you."

He had one arm extended over his head, the other rested across his stomach. He laughed. "But I've all ready died...le petit mort..."

The French and their stupid puns and double entendres, she thought. Frenzy groaned and rolled over onto her back. Her limbs felt like they were made from rubber.

"Shall we cuddle now?" he asked, slipping his arm around her and nuzzling her neck.

"Get off!" she said, pushing him away.

She didn't let him cuddle her then or any of the other times they were together after that. Which was any time he wasn't with Candra. Fooling around behind her back was dangerous, but the danger made it exciting. Frenzy later found out she needn't have worried about getting caught.

Several weeks passed when Frenzy heard a scream; a high-pitched cry of terror, the sound a child might make. There were children here in Candra's estate. She kept them around as potential replacements for when she grew bored of her current pet. Frenzy wondered when she'd grow bored of Gambit as she'd grown bored of the woman before him, the one they'd found dead on the dining room table. Candra's leftovers. When Frenzy heard the scream from the quarters where she and several of the other guards and mercs slept, she imagined Candra had all ready made a new choice. That Gambit could be dead now. She dashed out of her room and down the hall to the main living quarters. There was a second scream and the sound of an explosion. One of Gambit's card tricks. So he wasn't dead...not yet anyway.

Frenzy threw open the door to Candra's chambers, heedless of the danger. A young teenage girl with blond hair dashed out, tears streaming down her face. Frenzy watched as the girl stumbled in a blind panic down the hall. Inside the room, Frenzy was met with the sight of Candra standing over Gambit. They appeared to be dressed for the evening, him in a white tuxedo shirt and black slacks, her in diamonds and rubies and little else. Candra's face was dark and brooding as she looked down at Gambit. Gambit's expression was enraged. Candra looked up at Frenzy, who stood motionless in the doorway.

"Ah, Joanna," she said as if they were meeting each other for tea. "A woman after my own heart. You enjoy inflicting pain on people..."

Frenzy remained stationary as Candra proceeded to drag Gambit across the floor behind her as she walked, as if she'd held him on an invisible leash. She took a fistful of his hair and forced him over the seat of a chair.

"Perhaps you can assist me with some disciplinary action," she continued. "My pet has become obstinate. You're not given to shyness..." she beckoned Frenzy with her fore and middle fingers. "Come along."

Haltingly, Frenzy stepped into the room. Candra walked to a large vase in which several bamboo poles were decoratively placed. The poles had been soaking in water. Candra strode over to Frenzy and placed the pole in Frenzy's limp hand.

"Strike him," Candra said casually, seizing the back of Gambit's shirt and exposing the small of his back. "Go ahead. Don't worry about breaking the skin. He heals quickly."

Frenzy continued to stand and stare. She watched as beads of water ran down the length of the pole to splash onto the rug, leaving dark water stains.

"You haven't gone soft on me now, have you? Or perhaps you're feeling sentimental?" Candra asked. "You of all people couldn't possibly have been taken in by this one." She roughly tousled Gambit's hair. He was struggling against the telekinetic force she held him with.

"Do you think he might care about you?" she asked. "Don't be a fool. He's told me all about your little trysts...how he's had you every way a man can have a woman."

Frenzy's face began to darken with anger. Her heart thundered in her ears. Her hand gripped the pole tightly.

"Would you have thought he'd prefer someone like you? No, you're just a prize to him. You know how much he likes to challenge himself," Candra smiled. "You should meet his young bride. So lovely. So very small, like a little fairy princess. Fair, light...nothing like you at all."

Frenzy felt humiliation so acute it stung her eyes. Gambit was no longer struggling, but laying limp against the chair, his face turned away. "Go ahead," Candra said invitingly. "I won't ask twice."

Frenzy raised her arm and brought the cane smashing down onto the back of the chair, cracking the frame and splintering the cane into shards. She tossed the remnants of the cane to the floor.

"Do your own dirty work! You're both sick! You deserve one another!" she screamed. "I quit!"

Joanna gasped as his mouth drew away from her own. She filled her lungs with shuddering breaths. Remy's face was very close to hers, his expression drawn with concern. She continued to gasp and sputter, feeling her body tremble convulsively.

"Joanna," Remy said, his hand brushing her hair back from her face. "Try not to move."

She couldn't. Her limbs were not responding to her commands. She felt numb and cold, as if she'd been given Novocain in every limb. Her muscles felt engorged and flaccid. Remy was holding something in one hand, a brass cup. In the other hand, he held a paint brush. She could see him moving his hands, painting something onto her chest, even though she couldn't feel it.

"Close your eyes," he told her.

She complied and he drew the brush across her face. The shaking began to subside and she felt a slow trickle of warmth penetrate her skin. Remy whispered some words she did not understand and feeling flooded through her limbs.

Joanna was lying on a stone table, its surface worn smooth by time. Her eyes scanned the surroundings. They were in a vaulted stone chamber lit with burning torches. The air was dry and dusty. Remy began to cough, his breath came in wheezing gasps like an asthmatic.

"Can you-feel anything?" he asked her between gasps. The skin on his face and neck had turned red with blotches. His eyes were streaming.

"Are you-crying?" Joanna croaked.

He smiled at her and shook his head. "I know-how much you-hate that," he told her.

Joanna reached a trembling hand to touch her face. Remy took her hand in his own to keep her from touching whatever he'd smeared across her skin. She could feel it now, it was heavy and sticky. She could see Remy had been cut across the chest, blood stained his white shirtfront. "What...is this...?" she asked.

"It'll wash off," was his answer. He put his arm around her and pulled her into sitting position. "I'm sorry about your shirt, I had to take it off t'break de curse." He reached behind her and she saw that her head had been resting on his bunched up jacket. He shook it out and put it over her shoulders. He guided her limp arms through the armholes and fastened it. It was warm and fit her perfectly. "Dat was some kind of spell they cursed you with."

Joanna looked around the chamber. "Where are-what were those things? Zombies?" she asked.

He was chaffing her numb hands in between his own. "Non, not zombies. Zombies smell. Those were Le Choisi..." he told her.

She paused, struggling to recall her French. "The Chosen?" she asked.

"Or de choosers, I'm not entirely sure," he said. He seemed to have regained his breath, though she could still hear something rattling in his chest. "De Guild execution squad."

"They were coming to kill you," she said. "Why?"

"Could be any number of reasons...exposin' de Guild to Les Autres, stealin' from de Guild, harmin' another Guild member...I thought by now Le Choisi would all be dead."

"But what were they? They were horrifying."

He nodded. "Used t'think they were monsters myself, but come to realize they're the result of a botched Guild ritual. They were once Guild thieves dat drank an elixir that made them that way. All they know is pain and de desire t'inflict it on others. Like what happened t'Belle's brother...Y'feeling okay yet, chere?"

Joanna was still trembling slightly. "I know why you left Belle," she told him. "Why you were with Candra. Mercy told me."

Remy frowned. "Mercy should learn she don't need t'finish a bottle of wine just because it's open."

"Why didn't you ever tell BellaDonna? Let her believe you'd dumped her?"

Remy didn't speak for several moments. "It's complicated..." he said. "My instinct is t'protect her. But de person I couldn't protect her from was herself. I know she's got it in her t'stand on her own two feet. But she still sees herself as a scared girl on de inside, lookin' for a man to make her feel validated...worthwhile."

Joanna shook her head. "Sometimes I don't get you."

"I must be one of dem dichotomy things Xavier tole me about."

She looked at the cut on his chest. It was slowly seeping blood. "I wonder if you ever cared for me at all...or was that just a lie?"

"Seems like everything in my life starts off as a lie," Remy responded.

"Could you for once give a straight answer?" she asked.

He put his hand on her cheek and made her look up at him. "If you're talkin' about back then, when we were with Candra...I didn't care about anything or anyone back then. The only one I courted was Death. But Candra wasn't goin' t'let me off de hook so easy."

"What about now?" Joanna asked.

He gave her a sad kind of smile. "I like havin' you around, Joanna. I appreciate you're not scared to say what you think...not afraid t'call people out on their bullshit. Keeps de rest of us humble."

"There are plenty of other things to be scared of," she told him. When he moved to put his arms around her, she let him.

"You speak true, ma doucette," he said into her hair.

"Don't call me that," she said into his shoulder. "I know you're saying it as a joke. Sarcastically."

He pulled away from her and touched her chin. "But what if I think you're a little sweet...? If only just a little, little bit?"

She pressed her lips into a grim smile. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him, like in a romantic caring way instead of the aggressive passionate way she'd known. She couldn't see herself doing it. It was too close to being vulnerable. Joanna looked away.

"Can you walk?" he asked her. Joanna let him pull her off the table and she tested her legs. Her knees felt shaky.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Someplace else. Let's go. Dis place gives me de creeps."

"Why, Remy...you shouldn't let this place get under your skin," said a voice.

Joanna felt Remy go rigid and he drew a sharp breath. She looked at him as the color drained from his face. Seeing his fear, she searched for the source of the voice. The vaulted chamber had two exits, one a set of double doors with heavy wrought iron hinges, the other, a dark tunnel. The voice spoke from the tunnel: "I hoped you'd be more comfortable here...as you'll be calling it home for some time yet."

A man stepped from the tunnel. He was an older man, with close-cropped white hair, cold blue eyes, and a large full mouth that sloped downward at the corners. He was wearing a Guild uniform, only in white and gold. Joanna could hear Remy's breathing, raspy and loud and panicked. She pulled herself away from his support and stepped in front of him, shielding Remy from the unknown man.

The man smiled cruelly at her. "Still hiding behind a woman, Remy?" the man sneered. "I'd hoped you would have outgrown that by now."

"What do you want?" Joanna demanded in a dismissive sort of way, as if he were annoying her. "Who the hell are you?"

The man looked down his nose at her disdainfully. "Step aside, woman," he said and extended his arm to Remy beseechingly. "Remy...won't you come to me? You used to beg for my attention...you used to crave it."

"No!" Remy shouted, though now he was clutching the collar of his shirt. His skin had broken out into hives and his breathing was hoarse.

Joanna moved towards the man. Her arms reached out to seize him and force him back into the tunnel, away from Remy. She grabbed fistfuls of his robes and lifted him off his feet. She realized he had been holding something in his hand, out of sight in the folds of his robes. His arm jerked back, then forward, and it hit her in the stomach. If he thought he could stab her, he'd better think again. Her biceps bunched to toss the man back when suddenly, she found herself setting him back onto the floor. He appeared to recede from her, as if he were drawing to an enormous height. She realized then that he was not growing, but that she was shrinking. She saw her hands grow small and slip down the front of his cloak. Her scream began in her own normal voice, then grew high and frightened.

Her arms disappeared into the coat sleeves and the jacket enveloped her. She was growing small, small like Alice in Wonderland after drinking a potion. The man towered over her and she backed away hastily, tripping over her now oversized clothes. She shrieked again and again, scrambling towards Remy, back to where the table was. The table now rose above her head and she scurried under it, helplessly dragging at Remy's arm. He was on the ground, his breath wheezing in and out of his chest. When the man approached she shrank back in fear. He reached under the table as she pressed her back against the stone center, trapped with nowhere to hide. His paper dry hand touched her cheek.

"Such a lovely child," he said.

Rothko sat up abruptly, ears pricked to attention. Logan had heard it too, a noise from upstairs.

"And he never said anything at all strange when you were in the cemetery together?" Rogue pressed Bobby. "Nothin' that would've made you think he...that he was sick?"

Bobby shook his head, his mouth pressed into a line. Rogue opened her mouth again when Logan held up his hand.

"Somethin's goin' on upstairs," he said.

"Probably just Joanna kicking things again," Bobby said.

The dog hopped to his feet and padded out of the room. Logan followed, not waiting to see if Rogue or Bobby would join him. There was something else besides the sounds. A strange odor, sickly sweet and wrong. The dog was bolting up the stairs, a growl in his throat. Logan answered him. He smelled blood.

Logan took the stairs in three bounds. At the top of the landing he found two bodies.

"Logan?" Rogue called from below.

"Get up here!" Logan barked as he rolled over one of the figures. It was a gruesome disfigured man dressed in a black cape and cowl. The figure's pale eyes with tiny pinpricks for irises stared blankly upward. One body had had its neck broken, the other lay in a pool of congealing blood.

"Good God!" Rogue cried, as she and Bobby reached the top stair.

Logan stood and threw open the door to Remy's room, which had been left ajar. There was no sign of the other man inside but he could smell Remy's blood. He turned and looked at Rothko, who was sniffing the bodies intently. The dog then turned and ran down the hall.

"Frenzy said she saw a zombie!" Bobby exclaimed. "I thought she was just exaggerating!"

"Those aren't zombies," Logan said, running after the dog. "I don't know what those things are."

Rogue and Bobby pursued him down the corridor. Bobby banged on Joanna's door. "Frenzy!" he shouted. There was no answer. He pushed open the door to find her room empty. "She's gone!" he called after Logan and Rogue.

They had come to the end of the hallway. It was a dead end. The painting of a long-dead thief in Guild clothing stared back at them. Rothko was scratching at the wall and whining. Logan pushed the dog aside, then leaned his shoulder into the wood paneling. The wall slid aside.

"Sweet, secret passage Batman!" Bobby said.

"Look," Rogue said, pointing to the carpet. Drag marks had scored two dark lines in the weave of the carpet. The marks led to the open passage.

Logan entered. It was very dark, but he could see a stone staircase leading downwards and a faint light coming from below. Rothko started down the stairs. "Let's go," Logan said, and quickly started down the steps. Rogue and Bobby followed him. The staircase switched back and forth on itself several times, each time taking them further downwards. The light began to grow brighter.

At the base of the steps, they found themselves in a round chamber. The walls and vaulted ceiling were all stone. There were a pair of dark wood doors before them. The room was lit with the glow of torches. "Where are we?" Bobby asked.

"We're underground," Rogue answered. "In the tunnels under New Orleans."

"That's impossible!" Bobby exclaimed. "There is no underground in New Orleans. We're below sea level."

The doors on the other side of the room slowly opened. "You're correct, Robert," said a voice from the other side. Logan's claws flashed in the darkness and Bobby's form frosted, then turned a murky white, then cleared as he turned to ice. When the door opened fully, a man stepped into the open space. He was tall, with a white streak in his dark hair. His regal face was framed by a red and gold cape.

"Dr. Strange!" Logan exclaimed.

"Correct again," Dr. Strange replied. "You must come with me. We haven't much time."

Next time: What The Antiquary wants.

Surprise! Gambit's a twin! What could be better than one Gambit, but two? You could always go back and look for the clues I left in the earlier chapters. ;-)

Surprise again, Dr. Stephen Strange!