Chapter Seven
Braddock Manor's doorbell was an old fashioned mechanical chime system that had been updated only once since the stately old house was built. It rang loudest in the kitchen and the upstairs, where the Braddock family's servants would have been most likely to hear it back at the turn of the previous century, but echoes resonated all throughout the house.
Marta heard it in the sitting room, where she'd curled up in the window seat with a sandwich and a book. Jamming her bookmark between the pages, she teleported outside just in time to catch the brunette delivery lady climbing back into her little red van.
"Cheers!" She waved, then bent down to read the name on the rather large, heavily taped up cardboard box sitting at the top of the steps.
"Hey, it came!" she exclaimed and quickly 'ported the box into the Manor.
"Dad!" she called down the corridor. "Hey, Dad! The parcel from Oma and Opa is here! DAAAAD!"
"Your father's busy right now, Marta," her mother said, coming up the stairs at the end of the hall with Kitty and Edmund in tow. She looked harried, like she had no time or patience to deal with a teenager with a heavy box by her feet. "He's in the control room with Brian speaking with some representatives from the Ministry of Health."
"The Ministry of Health? What for?" Marta asked, her curiosity piqued. "And why are you running around looking so anxious? Are you guys going somewhere?"
"We're going to London to pick up Auntie Rahne from the train station," Edmund said.
"Auntie Rahne's coming? But why—"
"Marti, love, I'm sorry," Alice said, opening the foyer closet by the door and pulling out jackets for herself, Edmund, and Kitty, "but I don't have time to explain everything right now. There's been a new development in the case, that's all I'll say."
"But, Mum—! Auntie Kitty, can't you—"
"Sorry, Marti," Kitty said, knotting the belt of her lavender trench coat. "But I promise I'll fill you in on all the details as soon as we get home, OK?"
Marti's tail lashed behind her in a surge of childish petulance she couldn't suppress.
"Oh, but Edmund gets to know everything, right? That's terribly fair. And what am I supposed to do with this box?"
"Just stash it somewhere until your father has time to look at it," Alice said, already through the front door and on her way down the steps. "We'll be back in a few hours."
"But what about our afternoon training session!" Marti called after them. "Can I run the—"
"No training without adult supervision!" Alice shouted over her shoulder as she, Kitty, and Edmund piled into the van and slammed the doors.
Marti slammed the manor's front door in response and glared down at the heavily taped-up box, seething.
They hadn't even invited her. Just breezed past as if she were some junior trainee like Doug or Rachel instead of head of the Junior Excalibur team.
"Adult supervision," she harrumphed, and kicked at the carpet. "I'm sixteen, for heaven's sake! When are they going to start trusting me with some real responsibilities around here?"
"Marti? That you out there?"
Marta raised her head to see her friend Tessa Mulvey standing just outside the sitting room.
"I was coming to ask if you wanted to watch a holo-vid before we go back to training, but if you're busy with something…" Tessa said, coming closer to inspect the box. "What's that?"
"It's a box of stuff from my grandparents' house in Germany," Marta said. "I was trying to bring it to Dad, but he's tied up in the control room. Mum and Auntie Kitty just left for London with Edmund. And, there isn't going to be any training this afternoon. Not unless we can find ourselves some 'adult supervision.'"
"'Adult supervision', eh?" Tessa said. "Well, what about Mr. Braddock?"
"He's with Dad," Marta said with a scowl.
"Mrs. Braddock, then?" the American asked. "Or what about Dr. Stuart, or Psylocke even?"
"Auntie Meggan's been busy helping Dr. MacTaggert with Jessalyn," Marta sulked, her tail drooping around her ankles, "and Uncle Alistaire's not been feeling well. And Aunt Betsy doesn't count. She's not a full member of the team."
"She's an adult, though. And so is Forge, for that matter." Tessa gave Marti a sly look. "So, what do you think? Wanna go ask them?"
Marta shrugged.
"Maybe. But does anyone 'want' to train this afternoon?"
"I do," Tessa said. "I'm dying to try that Destry Western game. You and Suzie and Cessily always talk about it like it's the greatest thing, and if it's anything like that Hornblower scenario we did this morning, I have got to play it."
Marti nodded, starting to brighten.
"OK, then," she said. "I'll poll the others, and if enough of them want to join us I'll get Uncle Forge and Aunt Besty to come watch."
"What about the box?" Tessa asked.
"Oh, I'll just 'port it to the equipment locker by the Training Room. It'll be safe there until Dad's ready for it," Marti said. "Meet me there in ten?"
"You got it," Tessa said, and grinned.
Marta wrapped her arms around the heavy box. A moment later, she and the box had vanished in a puff of blue-black smoke.
BAMF!
Alice and Kitty stared up at the electronic display board, scanning the rows of numbers, place names, and abbreviations for Rahne's high-speed train from Scotland. Edmund wrapped his tail around his mother's arm, concentrating on not getting trampled by the thick Kings Cross Station crowds pressing in all around them.
"Platform 10," Kitty said, pointing. "That's the direct line from Edinburgh."
"It should be arriving in six minutes," Alice said. "I'll go meet her. Will you watch Edmund?"
"No problem," Kitty said, and rested a hand on Edmund's shoulder as his mother squeezed her way through the teeming mass of people between her and the platform. "Guess it's you and me for a while, Eddie," she said. "Want to split a pretzel?"
"Thanks," Edmund said, relieved to be moving away from the dense, harried crowds. The pretzel stand was outside, at the corner of the station entrance. The traffic out there was almost as thick as inside, but at least he could lean against the building...
Kitty looked away from Edmund to order their soft, salted pretzel, but when she turned back to ask if he wanted any cheese she couldn't seem to spot him.
"Edmund?" she called, starting to get concerned. "Hey, Edmund, where are you? You didn't go back inside the station…?"
It was almost too soft to hear, especially over the noise of feet and chatter, buses and cars, but Kitty's trained ears picked it up right away. A muffled cry, coming from the alley only a few meters from the pretzel stand.
Shoving the pretzel she'd ordered back at the vendor, she ran to the corner and peered into the alley.
Edmund was there, struggling against a tall, slender figure draped in black. Setting her comm. to alert Alice, Shadowcat phased herself into the wall. Once she was even with Edmund's attacker, she sank down through the stained, stinking ground and reached up to grab the fiend's ankle.
The attacker dropped Edmund in surprise. Edmund immediately began running, as he'd been taught, while Shadowcat phased the rest of the way up from the ground and walloped the attacker with a solid, roundhouse kick.
The cloaked figure staggered and collided hard against the wall. Shadowcat took up a balanced fighting stance, ready for the figure to lunge at her - but not for the large knife it suddenly pulled from its cloak.
Shadowcat only just managed to phase before the knife sliced through her arm. Taking advantage of the fiend's proximity, Shadowcat slammed her knee into the attacker's gut and shoved. The attacker grunted and, for a moment, Shadowcat saw the fiend's eyes beneath the hooded cloak, hard and bright with hatred. The attacker lashed out again, fiercely, wildly, but Shadowcat grabbed the fiend's wrist with a skilled ju-jitsu twist that forced the knife to drop. Kicking it away, she attacked again, locking the fiend's elbow and throwing the slender figure to the garbage-covered ground.
The figure growled, and jumped up—
—only to be knocked flat by a snarling red dog with vibrant green eyes. The dog grabbed hold of the attacker's cloak and shook it, revealing the furious woman underneath.
"Hey, that's her!" Edmund exclaimed from the end of the alley, where Alice was keeping him a safe distance from the violent brunette. The dog had the woman's arm now, and she was struggling with all her might to shake the creature's grip. "That's the woman I saw in Jessalyn's mind! The one who attacked her mother!"
"Are you sure, Edmund?" Alice asked. "This is very important."
"I'm not just sure, I'm certain!" Edmund said. "I told you I'd recognize her if I saw her. That woman is the person Jessalyn saw staring at her in the clothes store!"
Kitty untied her trench coat's belt and knelt beside the struggling woman, grabbing her flailing arms.
"Hold her tight, Rahne," she said to the dog, who jumped onto the woman's back so Kitty could tie her wrists together.
"That should be good enough for now," she said. "Thanks, Rahne."
The dog panted happily and morphed into a rather short woman with dark red hair and large, green eyes.
"Any time, Kate," she said with a Scottish accent as strong as her stepmother's.
Rahne's limited shapeshifting ability allowed her to approximate human clothing, but only for a short time. Alice quickly handed her the pile of clothes she'd morphed out of when she'd become a dog. By the time Kitty and Alice had hauled the bruised and ranting brunette to her feet and called the police, she was fully dressed.
"OK, Dai's on his way," Kitty said. "Time to call Kurt."
"Can I make the call, Auntie Kitty?" Edmund asked. "I want to tell Dad how we caught the serial killer!"
"I think you've earned it," Alice said, and handed him her comm. unit.
Edmund set the device to contact his father. A few moments later, Nightcrawler's holographic face appeared above the viewscreen.
"Edmund!" he said. "What's up, mein Junge? Where is your mother?"
"She's here. But, Dad, we got her!" Edmund exclaimed. "The serial killer! She tried to attack me in an alley, but Auntie Kitty and Auntie Rahne stopped her and now the cops are going to come and—"
"Edmund, bitte," his father said, "slow down. Are you saying you were attacked?"
"Yeah, but I'm all right," he said. "And Auntie Kitty tied her up and now we're just waiting for the police to come take her."
"Thank God that you are not hurt," Nightcrawler said. "Tell your mother I'm on my way, all right? I would like to be present when the cops question this woman."
"OK, Dad," Edmund said. "Are you talking the jet?"
"Yes," he said. "I'll be there in a few minutes. Wagner out."
"Yeah, me too," Edmund said, and switched off the comm. unit. "Here, Mum," he said, handing it back to her. "Dad says he's taking the jet and he'll be here in a few minutes. He wants to be present when the cops question the serial killer."
"I expected as much," Alice said.
"Can we go too, Mum?" Edmund asked. "Please? After all, we were the ones who caught her."
"Edmund—" Alice started, but the wail of a police siren interrupted her.
Kitty and Rahne turned to look at the approaching police cars.
The serial killer took advantage of their momentary distraction. Wrenching herself free of their grasp, she pelted for the fence at the end of the alley.
Kitty and Rahne started after her, but Alice was faster. Reaching out with her mind, she latched onto the woman's seething terrors and projected them into the narrow space. Instantly, the alley was alive with writhing, moaning, shrieking creatures, terrible and deformed. They reached out to the woman with diseased hands, necrotic skin covered in lesions oozing puss.
The woman screamed and spun around, but the monsters were behind her too, staring with dripping eyes, groping and pulling at her clothes and hair and arms.
Alice shuddered to realize she recognized some of the faces. Jeanine Prestcote and the other victims were there, as well as her and Kitty, Kurt, Meggan, Brian, and even Edmund.
"Don't look, baby," she said, covering her son's eyes with her hand, but Edmund shook her off.
"Mum, I'm ten years old," he protested. "Besides, Suzie's movies are way worse."
"What do you—?" Alice scowled. "I'll need to have another talk with your sister."
"Good God," Kitty said with a sickened grimace as she and Rahne edged their way between the ghoulish creatures to approach the hysterical woman huddling at their center. "If this is how that woman sees us, no wonder she lashes out. What do you think, is she a paranoid schizophrenic or something?"
"I couldn't say," Alice said, concentrating too hard on maintaining the projections to really consider the question. "Have you got her?"
"Safe and secure," Rahne called back. "I don't think she'll be tryin' a stunt like that again any time soon."
"Good," Alice said, and released her psychic hold on the woman's mind.
Edmund took her arm as she sagged, exhausted.
"You OK, Mum?"
"Fine, pet," she said. "Thank you."
The police were crowding around them by this time. Commander Dai Thomas pushed through the wall of uniforms just as Rahne and Kitty handed the shaking woman over to a detective with a pair of handcuffs at the ready.
"All right," the stocky cop said. "I'll need all of you to come down to the station with us. That means you too." He jutted his chin toward Edmund. "I want full statements from each and every one of you. Come on."
"But what about Dad?" Edmund asked.
"What about 'im?" The commander glared, then gave a start as the dark shadow of Excalibur's jet fell over him. "Right," he grunted. "Well, if he's comin', he's comin'."
Shouting to his cops, he said, "All right, everyone in the cars! I want this madwoman processed and ready for questioning by the time I get Excalibur's statements—got that!"
It was very late in the evening by the time Alice, Kurt, Kitty, Rahne, and Edmund finally made it back to the manor. As they trudged their way across the lawn from the garage and the hangar respectively, Rahne sniffed the air, and frowned.
"Do ye smell that?" she asked. "It smells like—"
"Smoke," Kurt said, his voice flat with dread. He disappeared with a BAMF, reappearing by the front stairs. Forge, Brian, Meggan, Alistaire, Eliza, Moria and the kids were gathered there all talking at once. They looked up at the sound of Kurt's teleport, though.
Meggan ran to him, her blue eyes reddened with tears.
"Oh, Kurt, it's terrible," she said.
"What is it?" Kurt demanded. "What's happened?"
"Kurt, it's bad," Brian said, his expression begging him to keep calm. "While you were gone, Marta and Tessa got Suzie, Cessily, Betsy and Forge to join them in the Training Room. Kurt," Brian paused, as if steeling himself to confront some terrible foe. "I have to tell you—"
"There was an explosion!" Forge blurted, and Kurt noticed his coppery face was singed and his hands were burnt and bleeding. "There—there was nothing I could do, no way I could have predicted—"
"What?" Kurt snapped. "What are you saying to me? Where are Marta and Suzie?"
"That…that's what I'm trying to tell you," Forge sobbed. "Your daughters…they were in the Training Room…and…. Oh, God. Oh my God, Kurt, I am so sorry."
"Nein…"
It was a terrible whisper, low and harsh. Meggan reached out to him, but he disappeared in a violent flash of smoke.
A moment later, a howl unlike anything Excalibur had ever heard ripped through the cold night air.
Meggan buried her head in her husband's shoulder and cried.
To Be Continued…
