Storm did all she could to help in her search. She called in cloud cover, both to keep her from being seen and to keep the temperatures up. She skimmed over the treetops, calling Kurt's name. At first she had high hopes, but as the sun set, and the night grew deeper, she felt the first stirrings of despair. Logan was right. There was no way to find Nightcrawler in such deep shadow. The first time they met him in the church, he had been right above them, yet utterly invisible until he fell into the light. There was no light here, and her flashlight was useless on this kind of a search. It would only serve to desensitize the rest of her vision. She was willing to go all night, but would he last that long? He only hope was finding any trail he left in the snow.
Then, hours into her search, she got a break. She saw a shirt discarded in a meadow, along with gouged lines in the snow; dragged footprints. The shirt was indeed Kurt's, stiff and heavy with ice as she picked it up. A quick feel of the two pockets told her his rosary was missing. He must have taken it with him, which meant he was still coherent on some level. It was the best sign she'd seen. She dropped her own pack and shouldered Kurt's instead, then took off running through forest too dense to allow flight. The trail he'd left weaved back and forth, like a drunkard's path. He wasn't in good shape. He couldn't have gotten far. Ahead of her, somewhere, she heard several gunshots. She ran faster, using Kurt's path as best she could.
Please tell me he didn't get shot, please tell me he didn't get shot, she prayed.
The trail ended several minutes later in a depression, where Kurt had no doubt fallen. To her relief, there was no blood. From there Kurt had been dragged. She followed the trench in the snow around the side of a hillock, where it seemed to end at a rocky wall. What in...? There's no way he could have teleported in his condition! Ororo was sure of it! There had to be an entry here, somewhere.
She took out her flashlight for the first time that night and searched the area. There was indeed a door in front of her, made to blend into the rock face. She flung the unlocked door open. Light stabbed out, and she heard a startled gasp in front of her. A split-second later she adjusted to the brightness, and saw Kurt laying on the floor just a few feet away from her, bare-chested, a blanket hastily thrown over his waist and legs. A startled, exhausted, pregnant woman knelt between compressions over his chest.
Ororo didn't even bother closing the door behind her. She shucked the pack, fell to her knees, and took over chest compression immediately. Instead of the dark indigo, Kurt's skin was a blotchy, pale, violet-blue. His chest was merely tepid under her fingers, where the woman's hands had been, but ice cold elsewhere. The woman beside her moved back, giving Ororo room to work.
"How long has he been this way?" Ororo asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
" 'Bout five minutes," the woman answered, panting. "Friend of yours?"
Ororo stopped, and the other woman breathed twice for Kurt. Ororo listened at Kurt's chest and felt sick inside. Five minutes of this, and his heart was still. She didn't have the equipment to deal with severe hypothermia in her pack, and this good Samaritan certainly didn't, either.
"We need a defibrillator," Storm whispered.
"I don't got one," the woman said. "If I had, I would've used it."
Storm closed her eyes. Thunder rumbled very close by. The woman looked out the door, surprised, and then looked at Storm. Storm had reopened her eyes, and the were a milky white.
"You must trust me," she said softly, still keeping up the chest compression. "Step away."
Thunder rumbled again, even closer. In fact, right overhead. The woman fearfully crawled away, eyeing the door, as an electric charge started to lift Storm's hair.
If I am wrong, Storm thought, Kurt will die. If I am weak, Kurt will die. If I cannot precisely channel the bolt, Kurt will die. And if I do nothing, Kurt will die.
A lightning bolt shot in through the door, through Storm, and into Kurt's chest. His entire body seized, back arching, limbs twitching. His damp hair began to steam. He fell back to the floor. Storm's back was smoking, her arms trembling. She listened for a heartbeat. Nothing. She summoned up her reserves and placed her hands over the entirety of Kurt's chest instead of just his sternum. Another crack, a whiff of ozone. Part of this bolt went a little wild, scorching the paneling a few inches from the good Samaritan's ear. She let out a started scream.
Kurt convulsed again. Then he coughed. His eyelids fluttered once, though they did not lift. Ororo tentatively removed her hands and watched with immeasurable relief as Kurt's chest finally rose and fell on its own. She felt for a pulse. Slow, but there. She looked back at the good Samaritan, who was holding her little girl close and staring at both she and Kurt.
"You gonna bring any more lighting in here?" she asked softly.
Ororo's eyes changed from white to blue. "No."
The woman swallowed once, then gracelessly clambered to her feet using any piece of furniture within reach. She was at least six months pregnant, perhaps seven or eight.
"All right," she said, her voice growing stronger. "I'm gonna try to fill up those water bottles again. We gotta warm up his chest. Don't bother none with the limbs right now." She moved into another room, probably the kitchen. "And there's a cot in the closet. And blankets."
"I have a reflector blanket," Storm told her. "It will do better. And thank you for saving Kurt's life."
She heard the water running in the next room. The woman's voice drifted back. "After we get him stable, I got a awful lot of questions for you."
Ororo nodded as she went back for her pack. "I can just imagine."
* * * * *
It wasn't that Kurt wasn't used to churches. And the fact that he was alone, on his knees in the front pew, was also normal. Church was supposed to be about community, he knew, but life was just better for everyone involved if he worshipped alone. It was a bit odd that he couldn't move his jaw, so he mumbled his prayers through clenched teeth. Surely God wouldn't mind.
The strange thing was that Ororo was beside him, watching him as he prayed, her hand on the back of his head. Even stranger, the priest in front of them was female. She held the communion cup in one hand and touched him on the forehead. Her touch freed his clenched jaw.
"Little sips, honey," the priest said. "Come one, now."
He looked up and saw Rogue in the priestly robes. Rogue as a priest? She put the chalice to his lips. It wasn't wine; it was some sort of warm, sweet punch. He opened his eyes, though he didn't remember closing them, and looked up at someone entirely different. She was a grown woman, not Rogue by a longshot. Only the heavy southern twang was the same. She was pressing a shotglass to his lips, half-filled with red sweet liquid. By reflex, he finished the two swallows that were left. He tried to move, but his body felt like lead, and he was wrapped in blankets besides, pinning his arms. He turned his head and looked directly at Ororo, sitting beside him.
"Kurt?" she asked cautiously. "Are you awake for good? Can you see me?"
"Yes," he mumbled.
"What's my name?"
"Ororo."
"Count back from 100 by sevens."
"You want me...to do math?"
"Humor me."
"100...93...86...79...."
She smiled with relief. "Welcome back from the dead, Kurt."
He sighed and closed his eyes.
"Kurt, you still awake?" Ororo asked, concerned once more.
"Yes," Kurt breathed. "I'm awake. I'm just tired."
After a pause, she spoke again. "I'm going to take your temperature. This might tickle your ear."
It did tickle, a bit. He obediently kept his head still while the time counted down.
"Hypothermia?" he asked softly.
"The worst I've ever seen," Ororo told him. A beep sounded in Kurt's ear, and the irritation was removed. "Well, you're up to 95 degrees."
He opened his eyes again in surprise. "Up to? What was I before?"
"Room temperature."
A shiver ran through his body. Soon he was shaking again. It was not a pleasant sensation. He grimaced.
"Oh-oh," the stranger said. "Better cinch it up again."
Before his teeth could start chattering, he felt a strap around his head snap tight. His jaw muscles jerked and spasmed, but with the jaw itself cinched closed, there was no chance of his sharp teeth cutting his lips open. From the stinging he felt as he grimaced, that had already happened once.
"Danke," he said through clenched teeth.
The trembling passed in a few seconds, and they loosened the strap so he could talk freely once more.
"You are a nurse?" he asked the other woman.
She shook her head and smiled. "No, I just had so many damn fools drop on my doorstep with frostbite and hypothermia that I got real good at treating it. My name's Beth. That there's my little girl, Amber."
She motioned to a small child, probably three or four years old, who was playing with her doll on a braided rug. Kurt blinked. Was he still seeing things? The girl was distinctly Asian, while Beth was as white as one could possibly get. Perhaps Amber was adopted?
"Kurt, can you feel your fingers and toes?" Ororo asked.
Kurt focused on that instead, moving his extremities, then his limbs, very slowly. The reflective blanket crackled as he moved. He lifted his head a little.
"I can even feel my tail," he said, grinning. "Maybe I escaped frostbite?"
"Maybe you're lucky to be alive," Ororo told him, her words sharp. "In heaven's name, Kurt, what happened? Why did you take off like that?"
Kurt sighed and lowered his head back to the cot. "I don't know."
Before Ororo could question further, the outside door opened. Beth stood up and gasped, a hand to her mouth, as Logan walked in, along with the man they'd rescued earlier. He was walking with Logan's help, but just barely.
"TOSHI!" Beth screamed.
She ran to him and held on. Toshiro returned the hug. They both began to shake. Amber was there, wrapped around both of their legs, screaming "daddy" over and over. Beth was sobbing something about how she was so scared, that she thought he was dead, that he was gone for days. For his part, Toshiro held onto her with the strength of a desperate man, tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Faithless woman," he choked, trying to smile. "I am gone for just two days, and you already bring another man into the house."
"When you send up a flare, darlin', you don't fool around," Logan said quietly as he moved around to Ororo. "Didja really need two lightning bolts?"
Ororo's jaw dropped. She pointed at Toshiro and Beth. "You mean...he...this is where he lived?"
"Everything just kind of lead up to the little camouflaged house in the big woods, didn't it?" Logan asked in response. "Now you know why I don't believe in coincidence." He knelt until he was eye-level with Ororo and looked down at Kurt. "Hey, elf, how ya doing?"
Kurt smiled. "Awful. Thank you for asking."
"Either one of you know about the dead battle-axe a mile or so back?"
Ororo looked pained. "I heard what sounded like a gun battle somewhere in the vicinity before I found Kurt. Another victim?"
"Not quite. She was one of the scents I got off of the first guy we found. She sure as hell wasn't innocent. Toshi said he recognized her. Some Christ Identity KKK nutcase called Clara Miles. The way he talked, if she was here, she wasn't up to any good."
"I'm losing track of the coincidences," Kurt mumbled. "Maybe we should make a flow chart."
"Shotgun blast tore off part of her shoulder," Logan went on. "Been dead for a good two hours."
"I wonder why didn't I see her as I came in?" Ororo mused, somewhat detached.
"Your tracks come in the other way, darlin'. You came in from the east, she went south. Me and Toshiro came up from the south, so we ran into her."
He looked back at Toshiro. The man seemed to have calmed Beth down a little bit. She was allowing him to walk, with her help, and he was moving towards the group. He looked down at Kurt, calm but quizzical.
"So you are the 'wild man' responsible for saving my life," he said, his voice soft with reverence.
Kurt looked over at Logan, confused. Logan shrugged and smiled in that way that told Kurt he just might have had something to do with Toshiro's declaration.
"Please forgive me," Toshiro went on. "I would bow to give you the respect you deserve, but that may not be wise in my condition. I owe you a great debt of honor, Mister Wagner. You are forever welcome in this house."
Little Amber pulled at her father's pants. When he looked down at her, she pointed to Kurt and said, "And he gots a tail, too!"
* * * * *
Though there were many unanswered questions, the night was late, and they had two patients to tend to. Toshiro was in almost as rough condition as Kurt, though his was from beating rather than hypothermia. Despite their protestations to the contrary, the two were deemed "unfit for conversation", fed soup and cornbread, and put straight to bed. In Kurt's case, he got the guest room, the bed of which was much more roomy and comfortable than the cot. It was a simple, homey place. A folk-art cross made of burnt matchsticks hung above the headboard, and the quilts Kurt pulled up to his neck had been stitched by hand. Everything had a warm, rustic feel. Sleep came easily.
When Kurt drifted back to awareness, he felt light fingertips on his tail. Sometime during sleep, his tail must have worked its way out from under the mound of blankets, because someone was running their little hands along the spade. He couldn't help but sigh, smile, and shake his head. He knew who it had to be. He either fascinated or terrified young children; there was never an in-between. But before he could turn over, or pull the tail from his "captor's" grasp, he heard the flick of a switch, saw light shine through his eyelids, and heard someone gasp in shock.
"Amber!" Beth's voice scolded. "You don't do that!"
Kurt rolled over onto his back, taking the opportunity to gently pull his tail from Amber's hands. Amber glanced down at the tail as it retracted, then turned to her flustered and blushing mother.
"Marmalade don't mind when I pet her tail," she objected.
Beth was carrying a tray of food, which she set on a nearby table. "Marmalade's a cat! You don't go around strokin'...a man's...appendage!"
She blushed even more vividly, all too aware of the turn her words unintentionally took. Kurt slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position against the headboard, his tail disappearing under the covers. Amber looked back at Kurt glumly.
"I'm sorry Mister Vargnur," she said.
"That's all right," he said. He wagged a finger in front of her face. "But the next time, you must ask permission, yes? I am not a cat."
She looked up brightly and opened her mouth, but her mother stopped her. "No, you can not pet his tail right now! Give the man time to wake up and get dressed, child! Now shoo!"
Amber hunched her shoulders and exited the room, wiggling past Logan as he entered the doorway. Beth was still blushing.
"I'm so sorry, sir," she apologized. "I hope she didn't cause you no trouble."
Kurt gestured that he was unconcerned. "The tip of my tail is not so sensitive as that. She may as well have been holding my hand. There was no harm or embarrassment."
Beth let out an explosive sigh of relief, much to Logan's amusement.
Logan took a chair and sat. "Eat up, Kurt. We got a little meeting downstairs, if you're feeling up to it."
Kurt nodded. "I will be."
Truth be told, even after eating, he didn't feel "up to it". Most everything still ached, and he was considerably weakened from his experience, but he knew this wasn't a social meeting. Under Logan's watchful eye, he walked down the hallway, down a flight of stairs, and into the den. Their host family, and Ororo, waited there. Ororo seemed glad to see him, but she was nervous, her eyes flicking from corner to corner. Not one room that Kurt had seen was equipped with windows, including the den. This must be giving the poor woman fits.
Kurt perched on the edge of the sofa and, as was his habit, rested his arms loosely over his knees. "I imagine I owe you an explanation."
"Do you have one?" Ororo asked, more concerned than accusing.
Kurt shrugged and looked down. "No. I'm still trying to sort things out."
"Well, while you're sorting things out, I think the rest of us should put our heads together. As you said, there are too many coincidences here."
Toshiro spoke up. He was black and blue from his beating, but the swelling had gone down considerably on his face.
"I do not remember being captured, but from your descriptions--" he looked to Logan "--and from the body we found last night, I have no doubt as to their identity."
Beth winced a little. "Honey, this ain't no good time for puns."
"I did not mean it that way, but it's true. Logan described your uncle's cane too well for there to be any doubts."
Beth turned red, her eyes burning with anger. "Uncle Fred got his old Klan buddies to beat up on you?"
Toshiro nodded.
"Sounds like you and your uncle aren't on good terms, there," Logan commented.
"My Uncle Fred is a bitter, hateful, cross-burning, twisted old man!" she snapped. "When he found out I was marryin' Toshi he did everything to sabotage it! He made threatenin' phone calls, left nasty letters--"
Toshiro put a hand on his wife's arm and she stopped in mid-rant.
"Suffice to say," Toshiro finished calmly, "after he came at my wife and daughter last year, he is not allowed anywhere within 500 feet of us, according to the restraining order. Nor is he allowed anywhere on our property. The woman we found last night was his girlfriend. Apparently, she wanted to prove her love to him."
"Is that why this place is so well camouflaged?" Ororo asked. "I would not have thought it a house. It looks more like part of the hill."
Toshiro's voice was soft. "Originally, it was just to be in harmony with our surroundings. Now it is a safehouse. Few know of its location. Clara must have been told where to look by her...lover."
"I'm not nearly as worried about those guys as I am about the ringleader," Logan told him. "That bastard could teleport, and he was strong enough to fight off Kurt."
Kurt looked down and away at Logan's statement.
"You know, that still doesn't make sense to me," Ororo commented. "What's a black man doing leading a bunch of Klansmen?"
Logan stared at her. "Are you kiddin' me? He was so white he blended in with the snow!"
Ororo shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving Logan's. "Logan...the man I saw was about seven feet tall, very, very dark, with African style robes and grooming. I thought he was Tutsi. What did you see?"
Logan caught on quickly. "About the same height, Nordic, long hair. Real soft-looking face, white robes. We all saw something different, didn't we?"
They both looked back at Kurt, who was scowling at the floor. After a moment's hesitation, he answered their unspoken question, his tone cryptic and harsh.
"I did not see that."
"What did you see?" Ororo asked.
He raised his head and regarded her with an air of barely contained anger. "I do not remember precisely, but I know I did not see what you described."
Ororo ran through numerous scenarios in her mind. A telepath illusionist? With sonic powers and group teleportation? Whoever this was, he was incredibly powerful. But just what did he expect to accomplish by aligning himself with a small, isolated group of aging racists? Someone like Magneto would have eliminated such people on sight, rather than use them. They would just as soon turn on a mutant as anyone else.
And why did he enrage Kurt so? Was he deliberately egging him on? He certainly seemed happy to drown him in the river the evening before.
Logan turned to Ororo. "You called the Prof already?"
Ororo nodded, still watching Kurt. Kurt had returned to glaring at the floor, eyes narrowed as if trying very hard to remember something.
"I did that last night with the house phone," she said. "I appraised him of the situation. He said he'd call me if he found anything. I haven't heard from him since."
Logan nodded, remembering how difficult it was to track Kurt the first time. Teleporters must have been hell on Charlie's brain. He glanced at Toshiro and Beth, to see how they were taking this. Unlike the Drakes, they were handling it all pretty well. They were understandably nervous, but they were doing their best to suppress it. In fact, Beth especially seemed to feel guilty about being nervous at all. Still, how much more should they say in front of them?
"Your uncle and his cronies," Logan spoke up. "Where do they meet?"
"Used to meet at the old Identity church thirty miles out," Beth answered. "But the police have been stakin' it out all week. Even got a search warrant and went in. Sheriff Wilson said the place was stripped bare, like it ain't been lived in for months. Ain't no cars there, and ain't no one gone in or out all this time."
Ororo had a bad feeling about this. "This is going to sound odd, but have the stakeouts been having equipment failures? Radios, computers, anything electronic?"
Toshiro and Beth looked at each other in surprise.
"How'd you guess?" Beth asked in return.
Logan squelched the urge to swear in front of the child. He stood up suddenly and started to pace.
Ororo sighed. "The ringleader can teleport a large amount of people. When he did it in front of us, he caused a disturbance that shorted out our electronics."
"Still need that flow chart, Kurt?" Logan asked loudly as he paced.
Kurt, still glaring at the floor, intoned, "No."
"Are you saying...that this man is a mutant?" Toshiro asked, disbelieving. "Leading the Klan?"
"Have you heard what the Klan says about mutants?" Beth added. "They'd drive a stake through his heart! They'd never let him near the church, let alone lead!"
"These Klansmen," Kurt said. "They usually think themselves religious, yes?"
All fell silent. Logan, still pacing, gave a bitter laugh, shaking his head.
"You think he might be impersonating an angel or something?" he asked Kurt.
"Fanatics are easy to manipulate, so long as you feed them what they want to hear," Ororo answered for him. "If he came in and praised them, 'blessed' their efforts, made it easy to kill without detection...."
"They would see him as validation of their blasphemies," Kurt snarled through clenched teeth. "That's what he's doing. That has to be what he's doing."
"But...if he can really teleport," Toshiro said, "how can he be caught?"
"Trust me," Kurt spat. "It can be done." He looked up at Logan without raising his head. "When do we go?"
"You feelin' up to it?" Logan asked back. "You've only had fifteen hours of rest."
"Just try to stop me, Logan."
To be concluded….
