Chapter 20 – Candy Southern
The back of his head smacked down on his pillow, waking him up with a thud. He touched his nose and felt a scrape. He must have grazed the ceiling in his sleep.
He had been dreaming. Turning his head in the direction of the faint whine of the city news he left babbling on the clock radio beside his bed, he focused on glowing green numbers; they read 4:05 a.m.. Was Jean in one of the University's uptown residences right now?
She had pulled him into her dream… He could still feel her energy coursing through his nerves, her arms around his neck, and her lips on his mouth. Why had it ended so abruptly? Did something or someone wake her up? Had an unseen presence been watching them?
Warren pressed one of the buttons on the wall above his nightstand. The space slowly brightened. Looking around he saw his sheets in a heap on the other side of the room. He supposed his wings had tossed them away while he slept. The curtains covering the windows on the left side of the chamber retracted revealing the dimmed, diffuse lights of the city outside. The Empire State Building, The Chrysler, and the other great skyscrapers had switched off their displays leaving a low orange luminance to permeate the thin fog lying over Midtown Manhattan.
He would find Jean tonight. Though he didn't know exactly where she was, there was a possibility she might sense him if he were physically near.
A recent arrival from his personal tailors, Flitcroft & Thwaite, lay within his wardrobe – a flight suit made from light absorbing material Worthington Labs had developed for the U.S. Military. His white wings would still be visible, but his body would be significantly harder to see.
A stray sentence from the radio filtered through to his consciousness while he pulled on his new costume.
"Witnesses are reporting a crane collapse at 96th Street and 1st Avenue…"
He walked back to his bed and increased the volume.
"Emergency vehicles are just arriving on the scene. Authorities have told us a delivery truck trying to avoid a speeding motorcycle coming off FDR Drive, slammed into the base of a construction crane causing severe damage to the recently completed seventy-story Richard Meier building. Most of the residents are being evacuated, but rescuers are unable to reach the two penthouse apartments…"
He flew into his office. Flitcroft & Thwaite had also provided the services of a highly skilled young fabricator and technologist named Varun Minar. Minar had produced a slender wristband with controls for the features Warren was developing for the Worthington Tower. A simple movement of the wrist activated the grand skylight bearing the lustrous red-haired seraph. The multicolored window slid open as the winged man rose into the air. He passed through the circular portal and entered the huge zeppelin hanger above. With another command a section of the glass rooftop overhead rolled back, allowing the Angel to ascend into the pre-dawn sky.
For a moment he hesitated. Where should he go? He might be the only hope for the victims of the crane collapse. If they couldn't get onto the roof, a helicopter rescue would be impossible. But maybe Jean needed him.
He soared past 96th Street. Why did he care what happened to some stranded strangers? Was it solely his job to rescue every high-rise resident of New York City every time there was a fire or a construction accident?
Soon he was looking down at 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The campus of the University was deserted. Warren surveyed the surrounding dormitories. Hamilton Residence Hall on Morningside Drive was the tallest at thirty stories high. He decided to begin his search there.
He scanned the building. The lights were on in only a handful of units. And he discounted those because they were all on lower levels; Jean would never live so close to the ground. His eyes ran back up the structure until they were halted by an open window on the top floor.
He folded in his wings and dropped fifty feet. Drifting a foot beyond the sill, he peered inside. It was dark, but using his exceptional vision he could clearly make out two pictures sitting on the desk. Jean Grey smiled at him from both frames. In one she was leaning against an auburn-haired, middle-aged woman he didn't know – probably her mother, he guessed. In the other she was standing next to Storm before the main entrance to the Institute.
Warren had found her room, yet she wasn't there. The covers on her bed were disturbed and the closet door was ajar. Had she left in a hurry?
Angel directed his gaze north, following the path of Morningside Drive. A motorcycle with two passengers zoomed along the curve of West 122nd Street and sped onto Amsterdam. Long red tendrils streamed out of the helmet of the person in back. He identified Jean immediately. But he flinched when he noticed her arms tightly encircling the torso of the muscular figure in front. The bulky outline of the fore rider's shoulders and the sleek lines of the vintage Harley Davidson told Warren who it was – Logan.
They must be on a mission. But Jean was no longer one of the X-Men. There could be an emergency, one that required Jean's unique abilities. Should he follow them? His distance from the speeding motorcycle was growing by the second. Watching the bike shoot onto the West Side Highway, Warren estimated their speed to be a hundred miles per hour or faster. They were heading in the direction of the Institute. He knew he was not welcome there.
Jean…
Was she too far away to hear his thoughts? More likely, she was preoccupied with the urgent situation that had called her out of bed. He turned back. Angering or just annoying Logan (and possibly Jean as well) wasn't something he wanted to do.
The mere idea of facing a ticked off Wolverine made Warren shudder. Crossing Scott Summers was one thing. He at least had a chance of out-maneuvering laser boy's blasts. The feral Canadian was an entirely different animal. Logan always caught his prey. Warren imagined his back breaking against an adamantium kneecap and then hearing the "snikt" sound those claws made when they snapped out; he pictured his feathers being shredded…
Flying downtown he felt like a fool. What was he doing peeping into a girl's dorm room at four in the morning? Maybe they hadn't shared the dream. The whole thing could easily exist wholly in his head. It might simply be a coincidence that he woke up close to the time she left the residence hall.
The Worthington Tower was within sight as 96th Street and Fifth passed below. He remembered the crane collapse. He had to hurry east to First Avenue. He hoped he wouldn't get there too late. He could still be somebody's hero tonight.
Warren sensed the sweep of helicopter searchlights across his wings. The fire department and the media were circling the area of the disaster from the air. He saw three people huddling in the mid-section of a hallway on the top floor of the damaged structure: a young woman with dark hair wearing a blue evening gown, a trembling guy in a suit, and an elderly man in a silk dressing robe. The force of the crane's impact had riven the apartments with multiple fissures. On either side of the hall were treacherous multi-story chasms. Angel rushed towards them.
He was thirty feet away when his heart stopped; he recognized two of the three. The name of the quivering man was Josh Gould. The girl was Warren's first crush, Candy Southern. Over five years had gone by since he last saw them.
Candy's sleeping face resting against the leather skinned rear seats of her BMW X5 with her body wrapped in his precious, hated, camel hair overcoat, was one of the most resonant images in the final sequence of his recollections of the Lindsley Academy in upstate New York. He recalled his fright when she rolled over. He was standing by the car, in the small gravel clearing off Route 9L where they had left it the day before. He wasn't wearing anything above his waist and he was afraid she would see him. Even in the bluish atmosphere of the early hours before sunrise, there was no doubt she'd notice the large white forms stretching behind him. She murmured his name; her eyelids twitched.
As if they had minds of their own, his wings extended and lifted him off the ground. He sailed above the treetops and then held steady, letting the air currents support him while he distinguished the black plume of smoke rising from the burning frame of Candy's father's cabin from the star-pricked, purple sky. The monstrous cloud of ash was expanding, littering the air with sparkling bits of flaming paper from the mounds of books, notes, and unfinished manuscripts Mr. Jarret Southern had piled into his retreat.
Warren spied Josh Gould and Avery Lewis below; they were running through the woods towards the BMW. Josh stopped suddenly and blocked Avery's chest with his arm. Were they about to look up? Could they perceive him through the darkness and smog? Again his wings responded ahead of his brain. He was flying away with no clue where he was going.
Candy's brilliant plan for their spring vacation had ended in a spectacular disaster. Warren had been wary when she first proposed the four of them spend several days at her father's secluded lodge in the Adirondacks back in late February.
"Come on guys, it'll be no big deal. Just tell your folks my dad has invited everyone up to Lake George for the weekend. I mean, Josh, your parents are in Switzerland, they only want to ski and be seen. Avery, your mom's in rehab and your dad's still in Cairo. I'm sure they've forgotten all about you…"
Candy, Josh, and Avery were 'working on a research project' with him that afternoon. They gathered in his private suite because he was the only student who was allowed to have one. Candy paused to suck on the cigarette she'd rolled. She walked up to Worthington with ribbons of smoke escaping between her teeth.
"Warren, let's see, this time of year… aren't your mother and father in Antibes? What do they care, really? Say you're being a normal teenager, doing what us normal kids do. We'll have such a great time! Our local friend will be making a special delivery and dear Daddy keeps the place well stocked."
Warren fidgeted with the lapels of his camel hair coat. The concept made him uneasy. But he couldn't refuse Candy Southern. None of the kids at Lindsley were able to.
Most of the girls imitated her in every possible way. When she cut her black hair to just below her ear over the summer, droves of other female students ordered their stylists to give them identically shortened coiffures. After Miss Southern lost interest in Marc Jacobs in preference for Ghesquière, not a single young lady who considered herself remotely popular failed to show up in Balenciaga for the December Fête. The devotion of these ingenuous followers irritated Candy. She preferred the company of Lindsley's male scholars.
The boys treasured any attention she gave them. If she merely joked with one in the hallway he'd beam with pride for the rest of the week. The abundance of her admirers traditionally required her to select a new favorite every month, yet since January she'd become exclusive to a crew of three: Avery Lewis, the captain of the lacrosse team who sported a budding politician's smile; Josh Gould, the whiz kid who aced every test without studying; and Warren, the blond billionaire's son who hadn't taken his coat off since Christmas.
Worthington was constantly teased for wearing the heavy garment all the time. He tried to use the excuse that he was cold – Lindsley's nineteenth century classrooms provided far from cozy conditions during the frigid northern New York winters. But the other students suspected what he knew to be true. The growths on his back were getting larger.
His mother had discovered the progress of his burgeoning limbs on Christmas Eve. They were staying in the old family manor, Falkenmore, in Centerport, Long Island, awaiting the arrival of his father, who was completing business in London. She walked into his room while he was putting on his clothes. The seams along the fabric of the brace he wore to obscure his deformities had split.
"It's all right, Mom. Look."
He buttoned his shirt and gallantly donned the specially tailored suit jacket. The bulges were still apparent. His back looked hunched and lumpy. She was horrified.
"Mom, please don't tell Father it's gotten worse… Don't let them cut me again. They'll only come back," Warren pleaded.
Kathryn Worthington's light blue eyes welled with tears. The boy was her only child. She did conceal the fact from her husband and arranged an appointment with Dr. Folterung to acquire a new brace. She also scheduled a fitting with Flitcroft & Thwaite for roomier shirts. During the visit the designers presented the camel hair topcoat. With it on Warren appeared nearly normal.
"You understand we're only putting off the surgery...until they've stopped growing," Kathryn informed her son.
Flying from the wreckage of Jarret Southern's lodge, he considered how different his mother had sounded when he called her to discuss Candy's invitation.
"Candy Southern asked you to stay over?" She was elated.
"Well, her dad told her she could bring along some friends…"
"You say it's a 'cabin?' Will you have your own quarters?"
"Of course, Mom; it's not a primitive backwoods shack."
"And are you…getting any better?"
"Actually, things have improved a lot. The brace is working great, no one notices a thing. I've been using Dr. Folterung's lotion every night. I think they're shrinking," he lied.
"Darling, I'm so happy. Candy is a terrific girl and her father, well I'm not familiar with his work, but he's highly regarded."
Warren laughed silently. He envisioned his mother's reaction to the scary psychedelic sex scenes in Mr. Southern's novels Candy read aloud to freak people out.
Lindsley's spring recess began on the second Thursday in March. It was almost twilight by the time Candy parked the shiny new BMW X5 she'd received for her sixteenth birthday in a pebbly patch alongside Route 9L. The four prep school sophomores grabbed their grocery bags of supplies – hotdogs, chips, mixers, etc. – and hiked a quarter mile through the woods to the cabin.
Warren was a little surprised to find the words 'primitive backwoods shack' came close to accurately describing the little house on Lake George. Candy explained that Daddy had made few improvements since he purchased the place from an old hunter twenty years earlier. Their cell phones didn't work and there was no electricity. In the center of the ground floor there was a potbelly wood-burning stove for heat and cooking. The small furnace divided the kitchen, which mostly consisted of a copper sink with a single tap for cold water, from the 'parlor,' an area featuring a tattered daybed, a low oval coffee table, a couple of spindly chairs, and shelves upon shelves stuffed with books and magazines.
Candy selected the remains of a fifth of bourbon from a crowd of half-filled bottles in the cabinet above the sink. Avery produced four plastic cups and they toasted their first night in the woods.
Soon darkness settled on the eastern side of the lake. Lamps filled with paraffin oil combined with wafting smoke trails gave their faces a soft, pinkish cast. Warren had never felt more relaxed. Although he'd refrained from drinking as much as the others, the two whiskey and sodas he'd slowly nursed over the past four hours made him feel like his head was floating.
He sat next to Candy on the daybed. Avery and Josh had surrendered their chairs in favor of a pile of pillows and blankets on the floor. Southern swung her dark curls at him.
"Warren, a puff?" she waved the lit spliff they'd been passing around before his face.
"No, I can't. I told you, my lungs…" It was a falsehood he'd been repeating for months.
"Right. You can breathe fine. I've never heard you cough once and I've known you since you were three," Josh remarked.
"It's okay," Candy drawled, bringing the joint to her lips and inhaling deeply, "we understand, Warren." A clump of vapor escaped her mouth as she exhaled. "You're afraid you'll forget yourself, take off your coat and your shirt and finally let us see the real you." She flung her arm dramatically to hand off the smoking fillet to Avery.
"What do you mean? The real me?" Warren protested. "You guys know me better than anyone. I have a problem with my back…"
"That's what I mean," she argued. "That's who you are. Whatever weirdness you're hiding under all those clothes…"
"And who are you, Candy? The girl whose dad wouldn't leave his playmate girlfriends long enough to watch his daughter get the school literary prize?"
No one had ever spoken so sharply to Miss Southern. Josh and Avery's bloodshot eyes widened.
"That's exactly who I am, Warren." Candy punctuated her statement by downing another shot of whiskey from the bottle of Bushmills they'd moved on to after finishing the bourbon. "And these guys," she said, gesturing towards Avery and Josh, "they're two boys in love who are too scared to admit it."
Southern rose, grabbed the liquor and headed for the door. Warren stood up.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm gonna check out Lake George," she said, staggering outside.
Warren almost tripped over the coffee table going after her. There was a half-moon and the clear horizon was peppered with stars but the looming trees blocked most of the light. Worthington thanked his ability to see in the dark and ran to the waterside. It was chilly. Candy must be freezing in her short-sleeved cotton top.
He saw her shortly. She was unsteadily tracing the lake perimeter. On this part of the shore there was a ten-foot rocky decline lining the water. Warren rushed to her side.
"Hi Candy…"
She dropped the bottle into the lake. As it fell, the empty vessel glinted in the moonlight. Candy spun into his arms.
"You arrre an idiot, Worthington…"
While supporting her neck with one arm, he scooped up her knees with the other. She didn't seem to weigh much and it made him feel strong. Maybe he'd become stronger? She stirred.
"Let me down," she requested.
With Warren's support, Candy tottered to the cabin. After they entered he saw the table had been pushed against the daybed. Avery and Josh were together under the blankets. The two peeked over the covers.
"Hey…" Avery warbled.
"Hey," Warren answered, while guiding Candy onto the daybed.
"Takes me up, Warren," she slurred.
"Take you where?" Warren asked tenderly. She seemed lost and unwell.
"Upstairs… Grab a lamp n' takes me upstairs…"
"She probably means the loft," Josh suggested. He pointed to the ladder on the far side of the parlor. "Up there."
After turning down the flame on one of the oil lamps, Warren clenched it in his left hand while carrying Candy Southern to the upper level of the house. He set her down on the narrow pallet on the floor. Ahead there was a small writing desk with a manual typewriter facing a window with a grand view of the lake. Manuscripts, loose pages, scraps of newsprint, journals, letters, and various other papers, were piled up around them, arranged like giant anthills. Warren placed the lamp at the foot of the mattress. Candy lay on her back and rolled her head from side to side.
"You're such an idiot. I'll takes my clothes off..." Southern quickly peeled off her shirt revealing a diaphanous, silk bra.
"Candy, stop… You shouldn't do this,"
Candy opened her eyes.
"Come down here," she beckoned with her index finger; she whispered, "you takes your clothes off…"
"Okay, I will."
He started with the coat. His shoulders felt so much lighter without it. Then he removed the thick cashmere sweater. There was only his shirt left and then the brace. He looked down and saw her eyes had closed.
"Is this what you wanted to see?" he asked the unconscious girl.
He stretched out his wings for the first time. The room was only twelve feet wide and he couldn't fully extend them. But it felt great. Candy was right, this was his true self
"Warren?" she was staring at him.
She covered her face with her hands.
"Whoa, I'm seeing shit." Her left foot reflexively kicked over the oil lamp as she fell back into her stupor.
A stream of flaming paraffin spilled out igniting a mini mountain of paper three inches away. Soon another pile took flame. The ladder was blocked by fire; the window was their only option. Warren yelled down to Josh and Avery.
"Josh! Avery! Do you guys hear me?"
"Yeah… what?" came the confused response.
"You have to leave now! This place is on fire! I've got Candy, you guys get the hell outta here!"
He wrapped her in his overcoat and carried her to the window. He quickly found the latch to release the pane and opened it. Cradling her, he flew outside into the night. To his amazement, his wings functioned like an extra set of arms. Until this moment all he had felt from them was pain. Now they lifted and strengthened him. Within seconds the BMW in the gravel clearing was beneath him. Without realizing how, he pulled in his appendages and landed on the ground. Southern never locked the car, so Warren had no trouble sliding her into the back seat. He continued to gaze at her face as he rose into the sky.
Fleeing Josh, Avery, Candy, and the fire, he soared higher and higher. Piloting through dark blue-gray and violet clouds, he pursued stars that burned brighter and clearer than he had ever seen. The cabin and Lindsley and his parents and everything else had disappeared. Nothing could touch him here. This was where he belonged. He bet the temperature was practically zero yet he didn't feel cold. How far could he go? Suddenly he felt dizzy. Maybe he was a little tired. He struggled to breathe…
What was happening? He was falling. Lines and boxes grew into a small brick building and tracks, train tracks! His wings spread, catching a rising air pocket; like a parachute they slowed his descent. He stumbled when he hit the ground. Studying the location he concluded he was in the old rail yards in Saratoga Springs. He'd traveled a distance of thirty miles.
The sun was rising. It must be close to six o'clock in the morning. He had to get to the Academy. It was closer than Lake George. Once there, he hoped he'd find out if the others were okay. But he was too exhausted to try that flying thing again. The chill in the air touched him; clasping his bare shoulders, he remembered he was exposed.
He fixed his sight on a sleeping figure on a bench on the platform of the desolate depot three hundred feet away. Warren trudged over the tracks to the station. His billowing wings whipped up the wind, scattering yellowed newspapers and candy wrappers in his wake as he approached the unconscious person. The man's weathered features, long stringy hair, and worn overcoat marked him as homeless. The length of the coat interested Worthington. The unknown citizen appeared to be quite tall; Warren's own height at the time was five feet ten inches.
The wretched coat would cover him. He pulled at his ring finger on his left hand. It was the only currency he had – his grandfather's golden signet band. It was supposed to be worn on his pinky but his hands weren't fully grown. He glanced at the image etched into the metal: an eagle perched on a shield with three swords crowned by the family motto, "Semper Excelsius."
After pushing the ring over the swollen knuckle of the vagrant's little finger, Warren set about removing the overcoat. The man awoke and sat up. Worthington stepped backwards.
"I'd like to buy your coat," he proposed, trying to sound casual.
"Yes," the man nodded.
"I gave you my ring…" Warren pointed to the man's left hand.
The man blinked at the gold. "I only want to know one thing," he said. "Why you come now and not before?"
Warren stared into the grayish pupils swimming in the glassy eyes of his aged vendor. "Uh, I came now because… I was doing other stuff before," he answered, a bit uncertainly.
The man unbuttoned the coat and removed one of his arms. "Is Lucinda up there?"
"I'm sorry, who is Lucinda?" Warren was confused. Swirling air currents ruffled his feathers.
The man rushed at him, the coat half hanging off. "I'm not going unless you got my Lucinda!" he yelled. Then he fell on his knees, sobbing.
Warren realized he had to play the role of a heavenly messenger. "Forgive me. I didn't hear you. Lucinda waits for you, always."
The vagabond pulled off the other half of the coat and handed it to him.
"I'll come again and take you to her," the winged teenager responded and walked away.
Though he left the drifter on the station platform, the old codger's moans channeling the lost Lucinda followed him for several hundred yards. The Lindsley Academy was approximately eighteen miles to the west. Warren headed in the direction of Route 29, where perhaps a passing motorist would give a ride to a young man in a dirty coat with stray feathers trailing his steps.
He'd been hiking along the road for an hour when he passed a state trooper patrol car at an intersection. The sight made him anxious, causing his hands to pull the filthy jacket tighter around his shoulders. The cruiser did not pursue him. Close to twenty minutes later a familiar vehicle steered onto the side of highway a few yards ahead – a 1965 custom Rolls Royce Silver Wraith limousine. A heavy set middle-aged man emerged wearing a slate gray chauffeur's uniform. Maybe everything would be okay. Viktor had arrived.
"How did you find me?" Warren asked, ensconced in the warm interior of the Rolls.
"It's all over the news. But don't worry. They put out the fire. Miss Southern was found in her SUV, she's fine, nothing wrong. Mr. Gould and Mr. Lewis are okay, some smoke inhalation, but they are all right. It's you no one knows about. Then my policeman friend called me saying a young man wearing an old coat was walking along Route 29 and here we are."
"Anything left of the cabin?"
"Nothing."
Warren noticed Viktor had turned the car around and was heading back towards Saratoga Springs.
"Where are we going? I thought you were driving me to school…"
"Master Worthington, I cannot take you back there. Your father tells me you must go to Falkenmore. No stopping nowhere…"
"I get it, Viktor. Take me home."
He never returned to Lindsley.
"Oh my god! Josh, look! It's Warren. He's here to save us."
Candy's big, long-lashed eyes were shining. She seemed to be more excited than alarmed that she was about to experience a skyscraper collapse from the seventieth story. Josh Gould was bent over in a cringing position, facing the one solid wall that remained. Slowly he moved his head towards the frightening blankness where the rest of the hallway should have been.
"Hi, Warren. Oh, I'm gonna be sick..." Josh turned back and shut his eyes as firmly as possible. "I'm really sorry, everyone, I have a difficulty…with heights." His voice trembled.
A deep, low, groan emanated from the swaying structure, followed by a snap. The floor shifted. Candy and the elderly man were thrown against Josh, who slid dangerously close to the precipice.
"I can only take two people at a time," Warren explained, gliding in.
Candy regained her balance and helped the older gentleman to his feet. "Take Josh, and Mr. Heifitz."
"Candy, are you crazy?" Josh was panting.
"Miss Southern, I refuse…" Mr. Heifitz objected.
"You have a heart condition! Take them now, Warren, or all three of us will die. Do it!"
Using his right arm Warren reached around Josh's chest and lifted him up.
"Hang on to my neck," Angel instructed. Josh was shaking so hard he could barely control his limbs. "It's all right, we'll make it," Worthington assured his friend.
Warren took hold of the old man with his left arm and stretched his wings to their full sixteen-foot span. As they sailed down into the river of emergency vehicles, press vans, and spotlights, another groan reverberated through the steel girders. Warren tilted his head and watched the hallway above crumble, dropping Candy Southern into the air.