Azazel came downstairs early the next morning and found Erik and Raven just returning from the beach, with sand on their hands and a shovel.
Raven looked up at him with a silent pleading that he ask nothing. Burying the boy had built a fragile detente between Erik and her, had allowed her the chance to take control of her howling rage. But it wouldn't stand up to much, and she couldn't face questions or suspicion - not just yet. Her relief was intense when he merely slipped past her with a casually affectionate squeeze of her arm, began to make coffee. Raven accepted a cup with a wan but grateful smile, then joined Erik around the table as strangers started filtering in in ones and twos. The child from last night, Chamelea, was one of them, red-eyed and pale but resolute.
Erik didn't sugarcoat the news.
"Marcus is dead. Those of you who came here with him know how brave he was, and what he suffered."
Chamelea hitched in her breath at that, her webbed hands forming fists on the tabletop.
"Don't think for a second that he's better off out of his pain. His life was stolen from him. He was one of ours - he was stolen from us. And those responsible will be made to pay a hundred times over."
The quiet conviction in his voice shaped their response. Nobody cried. Most of them nodded, lifted their chins in defiance. One shaven-headed youth with large, blacked-out eyes balled a fist and slammed it into his palm, a gesture of defiance. Erik nodded in silent approval, sat down at the table, and that was that. They moved along. He nods at the red man, leaning against the doorframe.
"Azazel."
Everyone looked at the Russian. Unphased by their attention, he spread his hands.
"We have some new friends upstairs, we rescue from New Mexico night before last. Later on, you should all go up and see if you know any of them from places you have been kept before. This will help us understand more the connections between these places, help us to plan."
An affirmative murmur, some furtive looks from side to side. Raven became belatedly aware of how new this group was, how tenuously it hung together. Looking around the table she could see partnerships, alliances, loose affiliations – but no sense of collective identity. Except when Erik spoke. Then they all shared a single expression – of awe, of hero-worship almost. It was a look that Mystique was familiar with – the total trust all those at the mansion used to place in her brother Charles, now turned on Erik.
He would be proud, she thought sadly. Kind of.
Azazel had finished running over the details of the New Mexico mission. As well as handful of badly-treated mutants (including the late Marcus, and Chamelea), Azazel and Erik had retrieved a number of files from the facility's offices before destroying it completely. Azazel nodded to Erik, who continued.
"Those of you who are new here; now's your time to make a choice. We have intel on another site in Canada, lists of names, mutations. Azazel is going to recce the facility today – we'll be going in by the end of the week. We'll need everyone, anyone, who can fight."
He turned a hard stare round the table.
"The wounded upstairs – we'll care for them until they're strong enough to leave, if that's what they want. And that goes for the rest of you too. You're all free to walk out of here any time you like."
Erik had risen, begun to pace the length of the room, looking at each wary face in turn.
"But I want you to think about that list of names, that list of mutants. They're being held just like you were, being tortured, experimented on. And there will be more, many more, all over the country, all over the world. Not to mention the countless others, not yet discovered by the humans, living in hiding, living in fear." His voice was rising, throbbing with anger. He looked at them again. Raven could see him register the fear, the uncertainty. His voice softened, grew almost seductive in its persuasiveness.
"Each of you has always thought you were alone. But you're not. You never were. You've always had a family of mutant brothers and sisters. It's time for us to come together. To protect each other, fight for each other. I need you all. And I swear to each and every one of you, I will lay down my life for our people, if you're willing to do the same."
Raven tried to focus on the mundane fact that Erik's earlobes had gone red as he spoke, and that his hand was tapping a nervous staccato on his thigh. Anything to remind her that this was the man she knew, no more and no less – a man with failings and weaknesses and wounds to counterbalance his idealistic passion. But even with her inside knowledge, it was hard even for her not to be carried away on the inspiring stream of Erik's rhetoric. Most of these kids didn't stand a chance. One by one, they got to their feet, nodded or stammered or half-shouted their commitment to the cause.
"Chudesnyy!" Azazel's booming voice broke the awkward solemnity of the moment. "Welcome, tovarishchi." He began slamming small squat glasses on the table, and filling them with clear liquid from a bottle with a red label. Raven picked one up, sniffed it gingerly, and reeled back at the fumes of neat vodka.
"Azazel. It's not even nine AM. And most of them are underage."
The red man scoffed.
"Is nothing, only little sip. And I never fight alongside someone who I have not drink with first." He raised his glass high over his head as he looked around the table, caught Raven's eye and winked. "Nashi vstrechi! Let us drink to our meeting!" He tossed the spirit down his neck with a flourish, black hair flying, then met her gaze in mischievous challenge. All around her, youngsters were knocking back vodka in a flurry of bravado and choking. Erik took his own drink in one with a flick of the wrist, then raised a wry eyebrow at Raven.
Raven rolled her eyes, sipped the drink and squinched her face. It tasted awful. Charles had never let her drink before – the risk of her disguise slipping was too great. And she'd seen him dead drunk too many times to think of it as a habit worth taking up even after abandoning deceit. But her pride didn't permit her to demur; she sank the drink in one.
The taste was no better, and the fumes made her eyes water. But something about the warm glow in her chest, and the proud grin that split Azazel's face, made her want another glass. But Erik was already making for the door, gesturing for Azazel and Raven to follow. The ritual had pleased the young mutants, and they were relaxing, laughing nervously and starting to talk to each other. Raven caught a tremulous smile on Chamelea's pale face just as she left.
The buzz of alcohol still running through Raven sat poorly with the business-like manner that descended on Erik and Azazel the second the door closed behind her. Erik was spreading a map across a trestle table, and Azazel stood behind him to see where he was pointing.
"It's supposed to be here. Right out of town. Can you get there?"
Azazel narrowed his eyes at the map, then stabbed a pointed nail into it about six inches from Erik's finger. "I can get here. Then I will walk. Attract less notice, yes? Two days maybe. Then I will see what is to be seen, and come back. Then we can make plan."
Raven frowned. "Huh? Can't you just go there like you came here?"
Erik looked at Azazel questioningly. Azazel looked faintly embarrassed.
"I'll leave you two to say goodbye. Mystique, once Azazel's gone, come find me. We need to talk about your role here." With that, Erik left the room.
"'My role'? Well that sounds fun," Raven muttered darkly. Then she turned to Azazel. "So what gives with the hiking trip? Can't you just 'poof' on up in there?"
The red man's tail flickered uneasily.
"I cannot go just everywhere. I can't go where I do not know. I have to have seen before, or to be able to see from where I am."
Raven blinked. She wasn't used to seeing him this way – anything less than suave and bonhomous, or savage and elated. He looked almost ashamed. She realised that he probably never told anybody the limits of his power. She decided to make light of it. "So, no trips to the North Pole?" she joked, making an elaborate moué of disappointment. He grinned in spite of himself, tipped his head in assent.
She leant against the table, pulled him toward her by his lapels. He came forward willingly, curled his tail around her hips. His lips came down on hers, his tongue exploring her mouth with leisurely lust. His mouth was warm, tasted of coffee and vodka. The heat of the booze was still running through her, but it was more than that which made her wrap her legs around him, pull him closer. She realised he was going to leave her there, in this strange place, and she wasn't ready yet to let him go. When he pulled reluctantly out of the kiss, she held on to his jacket.
"So how come? How come you can't go where you haven't been?" He ducked his head, shrugged.
"I can't go where I do not know." He said it in the same tone as a human would say they couldn't just jump up in the air and stay there.
"What happens if you try?" He began to look uncomfortable again.
"I cannot try. When I go, I must go forward; if I can't go forward, I go back."
"What if you couldn't go back?" He shook his head.
"This does not happen."
"But what if it did?" she persisted. He ran a red hand through his hair.
"I do not know. I stay there, I suppose. Between."
She shivered involuntarily, pulled him closer still, remembering that dead cold silence of the place they went between places. It didn't seem like somewhere a person could live, or even do something as much a part of life as die.
"What is that place, Azazel?" she asked. He looked at her obliquely.
"Why do you ask me this? You have seen it for yourself, yes?"
Now it was Raven's turn to be embarrassed.
"I always shut my eyes."
Azazel threw back his head and laughed, a booming bass roar that made her smile in spite of herself. She hit him lightly on the chest.
"Oh fine, laugh it up." He pushed a hand through her hair, boisterously affectionate.
"Poor little Raven. Are you clicking together your heels and saying is no place called home?"
"There's no place like home," she corrected him, then bit her lip. The mansion wasn't her home any more. This place, although she planned to build a life here, had a temporary feel to it as yet. In fact, the place that felt the most like home to her right now was in Azazel's arms. And he was going to have to go away, on a dangerous reconnaissance mission. And she was coming to realize he wasn't nearly as all-powerful as he made out or she would like to believe.
"You take care of yourself, you hear me?" she said, shaking him lightly by the lapels. He blinked in surprise, nodded.
"I will come back. Just two days, maybe three." She nodded, tried to stiffen her spine.
"I know. I know you will." He grinned sharkily at her, his uncharacteristic awkwardness evaporating as suddenly as it had manifested.
"And when I come back, we drink vodka properly, kak i Russkiye, yes? Many toasts. To our friendship, to the nation, to the host, to the women. There is toast for everything. And you will become used to it, not get so – what is word – tipsy?"
She huffed indignantly.
"I am so not tipsy-" he stopped her words with a rough kiss, slipped out of her grip as she got her breath back. Then with a puff of black smoke, he was gone. She blinked, then whispered "bye" to the empty room. Then went to find Erik.