Chapter Eight

'Hi! You've reached Xavier's Academy for the Gifted, student line. If you are calling to join the class action paternity suit against Remy, please press button one now. If you are calling from the Enterprise, and want your captain and engineering officer back, please press button two now. If you are calling from Microsoft, Ben and Jerry's, or Playgirl magazine, I'm sorry, but Kitty, Bobby and Piotr are not in right now. Press button three to leave a message. If you have anything to do with the fashion industry whatsoever, press button four to talk to me, Jubilation Lee, style goddess in residence. For all other enquiries, please state your business now.'

There was a long pause, as whomever it was on the other end of the line attempted to make sense of the high-speed speech. Then, crackling faintly from the distance,

'Jubilee?' The voice was familiar.

'… Gunn?'

'Yeah. Uh…' He was cut off.

'Gunn! How are you? How's Alonna? She hasn't called in, like, a year. I figured you'd lost my number. I totally meant to come visit, but this is the craziest place and…'

'Jubilee.' His tone finally got through to her.

'Oh, God, what is it?'

'Alonna's dead, Jubes.' She found herself swaying, and leant against the wall for support.

'How?' That wasn't her voice. Her voice was loud and cheerful, and never used one word when a dozen would do as well.

'I screwed up. She got caught.' Gunn's voice was steady. Jubilee knew that his face would show no emotion. He always was a good liar.

'They turned her, didn't they?'

'Yeah.' Neither of them spoke. After a long moment, Jubilee hung up. She paused a moment, and then turned and walked out the front door of the mansion.

'Do come in.' Xavier said a moment before Kurt could knock on the door of his study. The German mutant hesitated a moment, before stepping inside.

'How may I help you?' Xavier asked, gesturing towards a chair. Kurt sprang lightly into position, dropping into a comfortable crouch on the edge of the seat.

'Herr Professor, I have just had a most interesting conversation with Jubilee.' He paused. How best to broach such a subject?

'Allow me to take a guess. Would this have been about Faith? The girl Faith, that is.' The older man smiled slightly.

'Indeed. Please, do not laugh at me. But – how best to put this?'

'Creatures such as demons and vampires exist, and Faith is something called a Slayer?' Xavier suggested. Kurt nodded.

'That would seem to summarise the problem, yes.'

'I'm sorry, but what problem?'

'My apologies. I appreciate that my opinions may seem foolish or even distasteful to you. But what little I know of the Slayer is that she is a weapon of the Lord, pure in all things.' Xavier managed to keep his face still, but it took an effort.

'And you feel that such a description does not apply to Faith?'

'I would not wish to say a word against her. But it now seems that much that I know is incorrect. I… cannot help but wonder how a soldier of God would become a confessed killer.'

'Accidents happen, Kurt.'

'Perhaps. But I feel that…' He tailed off.

'What you believe has been called into question?'

'No. What I know has been called into question. It is worrying.' Xavier nodded, and turned his wheelchair, rolling out from behind the desk.

'I have spoken to you of my old friend Arturo.' He reminded the younger mutant.

'The Cardinal? Ja.' Kurt hopped to his feet, and reached out to hold the door for Xavier.

'He, like you, is a man of strong beliefs. However, he also knows a few secrets. I've told you about his current post. What I have not told you is that his Office has certain… other interests, and that he uses my library as an occasional depository. There are a number of texts that you might benefit from reading.'

Masks.

Logan liked to think of himself as an uncomplicated man. He drank, he smoked, he fought, he fucked – these were his pleasures in life. For many years, he had tried not to think past the next opportunity for one or more of these pastimes. He was not one for introspection.

Then had come the school. The old cripple who could, maybe, help him find his past, and the gorgeous redhead who could maybe help him build a future, at least of a couple of nights, and the tall, slim young man who was a sudden obstacle to that possibility.

He'd seen Scott's image then, the careful image of all-American youth in crimson shades above button-down shirt and buttoned-up slacks, reserved and controlled to the point of obsession. He hadn't been completely fooled by it – hell, he'd ridden the man's bike – but he'd still bought that it was the truth, assuming that it was the souped-up motorcycle, the wild-spirited fiancée, the casual jibes that were the act. Now, he realised he had been looking at a carefully constructed mask.

The mask was still there. To the students, to the Professor, Scott seemed unaffected by Jean's death. He was still reserved, still maintained his self-control. But now, it seemed to Logan, Scott needed his self-control far more than before. The man known as Wolverine wasn't used to contemplating such problems – he tended to follow his impulses. But even he could see the contrast between Cyke as he was in the school, around everyone else, and Scott on his bike, when it was just the two of them and a dirt road. Once, he had suggested that the younger man should lighten up and stop holding back. Now, he worried that Scott was in danger of not holding back enough.

The man he had first met would never have encouraged him to beat a student bloody.

'Where we going?' Faith asked. It was the first thing she'd said since her breakdown in the Danger Room.

'War Room.' Scott replied, not looking round. He stopped at one of the doors that lined the metal corridors of the school basement. To the eyes of his companions, it seemed identical to a dozen other doors they had passed since leaving the Danger Room.

When the door slid back, Logan remembered. He'd been in here once, three months before, planning the rescue of Rogue from Liberty Island. If the room had been damaged in Stryker's attack, it had clearly been completely restored.

Scott gestured them towards the map table, taking a seat at the head and sliding out a keypad. He touched a button, and a large monitor slid down from the ceiling.

'Wicked cool.' Faith commented. She had stopped in the doorway, leaning slightly uncomfortably and surveying the gleaming room. 'You guys get George Lucas to do the interior design?'

'Sit down.' Scott suggested. Logan took a seat that allowed him to watch the monitor, the door, and the other two people in the room. Faith limped across, and pulled out a chair between the two men.

'Well, it's Faith's kind of place.' Cordelia pronounced as they entered the club. This early in the afternoon the massive speakers were silent, and the lighting as close to normal as could be achieved with a dozen strip bulbs in a converted warehouse.

'You mean shadowy and discrete?' Wesley asked.

'I mean dark enough that nobody can see how much makeup she uses. Oh yeah, and? Sleazy.' Cordelia gestured towards the murals along one wall, which showed somewhat exaggerated exotic dancers in silhouette. 'She'd fit right in here.'

Wesley, perhaps wisely, chose to ignore her comment, instead leading the way across the room to the bar.

There were four people behind the bar, positioning glasses, filling fridges, and generally getting things ready for the evening ahead. None of them looked up.

'Good afternoon.' Wesley began. As was often the case, his accent was enough to get the attention of the bar staff. 'We were wondering if you could help us. We're looking for a girl.'

'Come back in about five hours.' A short, heavily tattooed man replied. 'We'll be jumping then.' One of his colleagues gave a short bark of laughter.

'She violated her parole.' He hoped he was remembering the terms correctly. 'We heard she might have come here.' He placed a photograph from Faith's Department of Corrections file on the bar top, and deliberately rotated it to show the bartender. He stepped forward, and looked at it.

'You have any idea how many pretty brunettes we get through here every night?' He asked. 'This ain't much to go on.'

'She'd have been dressed seriously skanky.' Cordelia put in. 'And dancing like a total ho.' The bartender looked up.

'That narrows it down to about fifteen per cent of our clientele.'

'Hang on.' Said another man, leaning forward. 'Boston accent? Came in with a cute Chinese chick?'

'Certainly Bostonian.' Wesley responded. 'I'm afraid I can't answer for her companionship.'

'They left with a couple of guys.' The bartender went on. His shorter companion glanced at him in surprise. 'Hey, they were seriously hot. Especially her.' He tapped the picture.

'Do you have any idea where…'

'Hey, I work inside the place.' He replied. 'And they left out the back.' He gestured. 'No way to tell where they went.'

'There's the parking lot security cameras.' Said somebody else. 'We've got them on tape. That might have them arriving.'

'May we perhaps look at them?' Wesley asked.

New York city was a beautiful sight, seen from above.

Veronica had never been troubled by heights – never had any serious phobia – and, since her late teens, had shown every sign of not being afraid of anything whatsoever. For her, therefore, hanging a mile above the city supported only by the muscles of a man she'd met less than an hour before, with nothing to grab on to between him and the ground, was a wondrous experience.

She didn't talk much. Instead, she listened to the sounds of flight – the great whoosh of his wing-beats, the steady, measured sounds of his breath, the equally regular thudding of his heart, inches from her ears as he kept close to three hundred pounds of people and clothing aloft without apparent effort. He dove and wheeled, riding the thermals generated by the massive heat source that was the city, and then brought them in to a perfect landing on the roof of his own building.

'So, Veronica Sawyer.' He said. He'd set her down first before landing in front of her, his gigantic wings moving for balance momentarily and then folding behind his shoulders. 'Where are you from, Sawyer?'

'Ohio.' She replied.

'Ohio?' He sounded suddenly amused. 'Were you born there?'

'Yeah. In a crap-end town called Westerburg.'

'Is that anywhere near the river?'

'The Ohio River? Yeah?' She allowed. 'Where's this going?'

'Are you a spy?'

'I'm a cop.'

'You're neither.' He gave an odd smile. 'You're a bloodhound, set on the trail by hunters, to find monsters for them to kill. Do you regard mutants as monsters?'

She looked at the beautiful winged man in front of her, and answered honestly.

'No more than any other human beings.'

'Would it surprise you to learn that the majority of us fear the government?'

'Because some of us do think you're monsters?'

'Exactly.'

'So you hide other mutants from us, so we can't find the ones who are actually dangerous.'

'What's that on your belt?'

'A person can put down a gun. Some mutants don't ever need to pick one up.'

'Do you go round dojos and boxing gymnasiums registering everyone above a certain level of proficiency, then?'

'That's not the same. Some mutants don't have to want to hurt people to do so.'

'And that's where we come in. You want to know the truth, Agent Sawyer? We're not hiding mutants to protect them from you. Most of the time, when we take someone in, it's to protect the world from them. I learned to use my wings in an... establishment. My best friend there spent a year blind, because if he opened his eyes he'd blow a hole in the scenery. His girlfriend had to spend four hours a day with her head in a box, to keep her powers locked down enough for her not to go crazy from listening to our thoughts. When I went there, I thought I was a freak. After a couple of months, I realised just how lucky I am. I don't have to check for innocent bystanders before I sneeze.'

'But you do have to keep one third of your limbs strapped to your back. That can't be comfortable.'

'I chose this life. I'm discreet rather than secret. When someone needs our help, word gets back to me. Then I pass it on to the establishment. If you took me out, you'd cause a major setback to our organisation. We're the mutant underground, Veronica Sawyer. Today, you're going to choose whether you're with us, or against us.'

'Now that should have ended the fight, right there.' Scott commented. On the screen, Wolverine rose to his knees and blocked a roundhouse kick, before slamming an elbow into Faith's stomach.

'You see me arguing?' She turned to Logan. 'You just kept getting back up.'

'Worked, didn't it?'

'Well, yeah. But I still owned your ass.' Logan didn't comment. Scott did.

'Do you always spar like that?'

'Hey, you told me to go to town on him.'

'Anyone else would be dead, Faith. You can't fight like that all the time.'

'I just hit him harder every time he got up. You didn't exactly see him holding back, did you?'

Logan placed an open hand on the table in front of her. Faith glanced at his face, then at the hand. Logan extended his claws, and she jerked backwards in shock.

'Wolverine was holding back.' Scott commented redundantly. 'I'll expect the same from you, Faith. If you ever find yourself in a combat situation with the X-Men, you will not use lethal force.'

'And if someone gets killed because I was holding back?'

'Under certain circumstances…' Scott began, but Logan cut him off.

'You do what you got to.'

'That what you use the built-in cutlery for?'

A grunt was her only reply.

'There.' Said Wesley. 'Pause it there. There. There. Rewind!' Cordelia gave him an exasperated look.

'That wasn't her.' She replied, and hit the rewind button. Figures walked backwards on the screen. Filmed in black-and-white, at a distance, at night, the image was anything but clear.

'I think it was.' He tapped the screen. A girl, walking with three others, her face mostly concealed by her hair. What little was visible was, thanks to poor video quality, pretty much unidentifiable.

'Wes, you can't even see her face.'

'I can see the way she walks. I can see the way she interacts.'

'Right. Who are those people, anyway?' Cordelia could see two young women – both about Faith's height – and a tall man. All three had dark hair, although there seemed to be lighter bangs framing the face of one of the girls.

'Well, I would guess that one of them would be the Chinese girl our hosts mentioned.' Wesley replied. 'But I'd take any odds that we've found her. Rewind a little more.' On the screen, they watched as the four walked backwards into the parking lot and out of shot.

'Well?' Asked Cordelia.

'Wait.'

Seconds flickered past at high speed, and then something blurred across the screen.

'Wait. Stop. Pause.' Said Wesley. Cordelia hit the pause button. 'Play.'

A jeep shot into the parking lot at high speed, swiftly vanishing out of shot.

Wesley grabbed the remote control and paused the machine yet again before edging the video backwards.

'What? They probably get thousands of cars going past that camera every day.' Cordelia pointed out.

'How do you think Faith drives?' Wesley asked. The jeep edged backwards on to the screen. There were four people in it, and two of them had long, dark hair.

'Like a crazed maniac. Duh. Hey!'

'There.' Said Wesley. He tapped the screen. 'Now, if our friends in the FBI can expose this tape to a little detail work, we should be able to get a licence number.' He looked up with a triumphant smile. 'And then, we will have her address.'