Rosa was shivering badly by the time the curandera's little house appeared on the horizon. It wasn't from shock or pain; it was from fear. Logan carefully pulled her off his shoulders and sat her down on his lap, where she leaned against his chest. Kurt glanced her direction as well.
"We be almost there, Rosa," Kurt told her.
"I can't go in there," she whimpered.
"Rosa, you be hurting. You must go in."
Rosa shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. "I can't go in. What if I get ugly again? She'll kill me."
Kurt turned his attention to landing the Blackbird. How could he tell this girl to go in? How could he assure her everything would be all right? So often it wasn't. He'd lost track of how many "good Christians" had turned weapons on him at first sight. How many doctors turned him away, or suggested he see a veterinarian instead. He couldn't lie to this girl… but he couldn't let her fear keep her from the only help they had.
"She afraid to go in there?" Logan asked as they touched down.
Kurt nodded. "She thinks if she 'turns ugly' the healer will try to kill her."
Logan let go a long, steady breath. "Can't say as I blame her. Does this healer lady speak English?"
"Let me ask." In Castilian, "Rosa, does the curandera speak English?"
"A little bit," she whispered. "Not too much."
"It sounds like she knows a few words," Kurt told Logan.
Logan stood up with Rosa in his arms. "Okay, here's the drill. I'll go in with 'Ro first. Then I come back for Rose. If anything happens, I'll protect her. No one's gonna hurt her while I'm around."
Kurt looked out the cockpit, at the little house a few hundred feet distant. A wizened, stooped woman was at the doorway. Well, at least they knew she wasn't deaf….
"And if everything checks out in there, I want you in, too," Logan said, poking Kurt in the shoulder. "Unless those arms come to life in the next few minutes."
Kurt tried. Though he still had no feeling, he was able to move his shoulders and elbows. He flexed, then shook his arms out.
"They seem to be waking up," he said. "And the ladies need attention more than I."
Logan set Rosa on Kurt's lap. "Good. One of us needs to stay with the plane, anyway."
As Kurt lowered the ramp, Logan bolted to Ororo's side and unhooked all the buckles in short order. He lifted her, blankets and all. She never stirred, nor opened her eyes. Her face was cooler than Logan liked, her pulse thready. He ran down the ramp and headed for the little adobe home.
The woman standing at the doorway could have been any age between 60 and 600. Her light brown face was lined with deep wrinkles, the consequences of harsh work and harsher sun. She wore the traditional native dress of the region, a brightly-colored skirt and blouse of homespun fabric. She stared at the jet, wide eyed, only looking at Logan as he drew within a few yards of her place.
She crossed herself frantically, whispering, "Madre de Dios…."
"She needs help, bad," Logan said as he jogged to a halt in front of the woman.
The curandera looked at Ororo, and nodded. "Si, si, inside. Come."
Kurt watched from his seat as Logan carried Ororo inside the house, followed closely by the curandera. He held Rosa loosely in his arms, staring out past her.
"They be inside now," Kurt said. "The curandera has them now."
Rosa nodded, sniffing. She was trying so hard not to cry, but she wasn't succeeding. As with Logan, she curled up against Kurt's chest, staring blankly into space. Kurt stroked the back of her head with his tail. She had been so strong up until now. There had to be something he could do to comfort her. There had to be something. He rocked back and forth, tucking his tail between his leaden arms and her back to gauge how tightly he hugged her. Softly, he began to sing.
Tunjariko e rjat, angar kalo,
Nekezhi' ma, marel o jilo;
Trajin el Rrom sar nisave
Rrevdin e dukh, sa bokhale.
Dzum dzum dzum
Sar macharki pash-dural hurjas,
Dzum dzum dzum
Amare levuci rromane bashas.
He drew in a startled breath as he saw Logan's reflection in the glass, then spun around. How did he get back into the jet without being heard?
"You've got a halfway decent singing voice, elf," Logan said. "Is that German?"
"No. Romani." Kurt stood up, still holding Rosa in his arms.
"What's it about?"
Kurt looked down at Rosa and stroked her hair with his tail once more. "It isn't the… brightest song. It was written during the holocaust."
He handed her over to Logan. She wasn't limp, but she didn't react, either. She just laid in the arms of whoever had her, quiet and passive.
"I'll call Herr Professor," he said softly. "He needs to know what's happening."
"Yeah. You do that."
Logan went down the ramp again, then ran to the curandera's house.
Like so many of the adobe structures they saw in the other town, the curandera's lonely house had no glass for the windows. Nor did it have electricity, running water, or (to Logan's chagrin) a telephone. But unlike the rest of the homes, this house had a tile roof and smooth, even walls. The fireplace inside had a rounded, organic appearance rather than the usual square mantels of American homes, and the curves were perfectly shaped. A professional had made this house, or at least an artist had come in and added to it. The furnishings were simple; colorful, striped blankets hung from the walls, and a shrine to the Holy Virgin took up one corner.
The old woman was where Logan had left her; in her own room, kneeling at the side of the bed where Ororo lay. She chanted in Spanish and shook a feathered rattle that seemed to be made out of the dried ball and stem of some giant kelp. Some of the words were obvious, even to Logan: Madre de Dios and Jesús weren't hard to figure out. Logan stood nearby as he waited, watching over the curandera's shoulder from a discrete distance.
The woman reached out with her free hand and picked up a pinch of something from a nearby wide-lipped bowl. She sprinkled it into Ororo's wound, then placed her hand over it. She never stopped chanting, never stopped shaking her rattle.
What the hell are we doing here? Logan thought. We're sitting in the middle of bum-fuck-Mexico, watching some lady chant and shake a rattle. 'Ro aughta be in a hospital….
His sensitive nose caught a shift in the old woman's scent. Some kind of chemical change. He drew near, standing next to her, now, and watched her closely. There was a slight waver in the air, like a heat shimmer, around her hand; such a slight effect that it was invisible to all but the closest observation. Color slowly faded back into Ororo's face, and her eyebrows momentarily knitted.
And then Logan caught a different scent, right up against him. He looked down at Rosa. Bristles were starting to poke out of her skin.
:
"Got her!" Angelou cried triumphantly, turning to Matt. "Bitch's active twenty miles east!"
Matt quickly spoke into dashboard radio. "Can you guys pick up the signal?"
There was a pause as hound party one checked their instruments on the other end of the line.
"Yeah, she's up," the speaker shouted above the sounds of the engine. His voice betrayed the constant, jarring movement of their all-terrain vehicle. "She's stationary, right?"
"That's an affirm. Gimme an ETA, guys."
"We're looking at about half hour, maybe more."
Matt looked back to Angelou and gave a silent thumbs up. As he turned, he saw another light on the control panel. He pointed behind Lou.
"Lou, check that out, will you?"
"Huh? Check what out?"
"The indicator light? Behind you?"
Angelou finally looked back to where Matt was impatiently pointing and figured out what he was talking about.
"How come this one isn't making any noise?" Angelou muttered.
"It isn't strong enough. You have to have something above threshold for it to make a noise. Otherwise we'd be homing in on little stuff like midgets all the time." Angelou laughed, and Matt fumed, "That wasn't meant to be funny. I slipped, okay?"
"Matt, you're not gonna believe this."
"What?"
"Out new mutie is in the same place as the girl."
Matt grinned. "Great. Two for one."
:
Logan backed out of the room as Rosa started to shake. Dammit, this girl had lousy timing. She must not have any control over her power yet. The bristles lengthened under the T-shirt, not poking through but sticking up underneath. In seconds, she was the same hideous little creature they had found in the tunnels. He sat with Rosa for several minutes, listening to the chanting next door. Here he was, comforting a scared girl again. If this kept up, his reputation would never recover.
I hope this lady wasn't just blowing smoke when she said to bring Rose in, Logan thought, looking back into the bedroom. Otherwise, we've got a problem.
During the chanting, he heard a deep sigh. There was no way the healer could do both at the same time. That had to be Ororo. He peeked around the corner to see Ororo shifting slightly, a frown on her face. She was just shy of coming around. The curandera lowered her rattle and finished her prayers, and leaned over her patient. Logan leaned back against the wall again and patted Rosa with one hand.
"You did good, kid," he said quietly. "You did real good."
The curandera slowly stood up, leaning on the bed for support. She kissed Ororo on the forehead and made the sign of the cross over her before straightening up completely. Or, at least, straightening up as much as possible. Osteoporosis seemed to have robbed her of her posture some time ago.
She slowly walked out of the bedroom, exhaustion etched into every line in her craggy face. "She live, senior. She live now. She need sleep--"
The old woman turned to Logan as she spoke, and got her first real look at Rosa's "secondary form". She gasped and backed against the doorway, covering her mouth in shock.
"You bring chupacabras?" she cried.
"No, no, remember what I said?" Logan interrupted as he stood up. "This is Rose inside. It's her. She looks different, but she's really a little girl."
"Is Rosa?" she asked meekly, peering at the girl. "Rosa and bad lip?"
So she knew the girl already? That could be good or bad…. "Yeah, that's her. Sometimes she looks like this, and sometimes she doesn't. Right now she's hurt, all right?"
The healer tentatively reached out to Rosa and touched her leg. Her eyes widened in further shock, and she began talking rapidly in Spanish. Rosa turned to her, and the woman stepped forward and cupped Rosa's face in her hands, her words rapid, her tone and expression one of concern.
"Senior, please come here," she said to Logan, gesturing to an old couch covered with an afghan. "Sit Rosa here."
Logan did. The curandera went to a cabinet and pulled a few bottles before joining him. She kept speaking Spanish, her tone now someplace between chiding and loving.
" 'Crawler, you listenin' in on this?" Logan asked softly.
After a pause, Kurt's voice answered through the earpiece. "I am now."
"Any idea what she's sayin'?"
"She's speaking so fast…. There is something about how she helped bring Rosa into the world, how she will help make her better, why didn't her parents bring her sooner… I can't get the rest."
"You called up Charley yet?"
"….No…."
That was unusual. Kurt was second only to Scott in his adherence to protocol. "Okay. Not that I care, but why not? You said you were gonna."
There was a pause, and Logan could hear Kurt take a deep breath. "Because if Storm doesn't make it, I don't want them to feel helpless between my calling and her… going."
Logan looked into the curandera's room. Ororo was curling up on her good side, away from the midday light from the open doorway and window.
"You don't need to worry about that, partner," Logan said. " 'Ro's out of shock."
"She is?" Kurt asked, breathless.
"She's sleeping now. The kid wasn't kidding when she said this lady was a healer."
Back in the Blackbird, Kurt barely registered Logan's words. The fact that Ororo was alive was more important than anything else the man had to say. He just sat there in the pilot's seat, head leaning on the yoke, silently thanking God over and over and over. He only raised his head when Logan called his name again.
"You still there, buddy?"
"Y-yes," he said, startled. "I… I need to call Herr Professor now. Excuse me."
Though he could move his wrists now, his fingers were still numb. He turned the main communications array on with a few taps of his tail. Immediately, a warning light came on. The systems had picked up a broadcast trying to penetrate the Blackbird's ECMs. Kurt hadn't shut off the communications array fifteen minutes ago: whatever it was must have started broadcasting during that time. He quickly scanned for the origination point or points. Nine points, all literally inside the jet. Kurt looked back at the suit's remnants: if there were two transmitters in each limb, and one in the head….
"Logan, we have a problem. There are transmitters in those suit arms and legs, and they're trying to call to their owners."
"Shit, don't tell me we've been tracked to here?" Logan spat in reply.
"The signals haven't been able to get through the countermeasures, but it means that someone is probably searching for us. Hold on…."
Kurt scanned the active frequencies in the area. Short-wave radio, commercial jets, satellite broadcasts… he cut through the common chatter to isolate the more unusual broadcasts. He found two points of activity close by. One of them broadcast a signal that looked like the activator for the suit's transmitters. The other seemed to be a hive of sensor activity. Both points had an open comlink between them, both were on the move, going at least forty miles an hour, and both were homing in on their location. The one with lower sensor activity was almost on top of them.
To be concluded…