Chapter Text
Beatrice closed the bar door, locked it, verified that it was locked, and then turned to Ava, who stood a few feet away, staring down at the street. She was rubbing her forearms, alternating between them. Her shoulders were hunched, and her head bent forward, offering a commanding view into her cleavage, which would normally be extremely distracting, but Ava was Beatrice’s friend first and foremost, and Ava needed help. Unfortunately, as was so often when it came to Ava, Beatrice had no idea what to do.
Beatrice breathed one, two, three times, and began walking.
“I’m sorry, Bea,” Ava said, almost too quietly to hear as she fell into step beside her.
“Ava, you nearly beat someone to death. You were borderline - no, you were feral. The police were here. We are supposed to be hiding. What is going on with you?”
“I don’t know.” Ava stopped in her tracks. “I don’t know, Bea. Ever since we got here, I’ve been feeling . . .” Her hands jerked about. “The only time I’m comfortable is when we’re either out in the woods or holed up in the apartment. Everything else is like, I feel like some kind of animal in a cage. And then that guy came in spouting off not just about You Know Who, but misogynstic shit and I . . . I just wanted to . . . it was like, ‘rah, enemy, kill kill kill’.”
Beatrice looked at her. Ava had anger issues, for entirely understandable reasons, but this . . . this was something else. “Could it be the Halo?” She asked in a soft voice.
“No . . . maybe? It doesn’t feel like the Halo, it’s like, this is me.” She rubbed her forearms, which Beatrice realized she’d been doing a lot lately.
“Ava, what’s wrong with your arms?”
“My bones ache. Could I be getting taller? Is this that second puberty thing?”
“If you were getting taller, the ache would be full body, or at least in your legs. Second puberty is more of a redistribution of body fat as your hormones settle down.”
“So like . . . bigger boobs? Oh man, imagine the tips I’d get with bigger boobs!”
“That would be significant yes,” Beatrice agreed. Ava was in no way flat chested to begin with and the mental image of Ava with even more heft in her chest was not an image Beatrice wanted. Not because it was bad, but because it would cheerfully move in and take up residence front and center in her brain if she let it.
They were halfway home when raised voices caught their attention and Ava being Ava, promptly went to go see. In a small square, the buildings around it dark and locked, they found a woman surrounded by five or so men dressed in the collared shirts and polos of the FBC. For her part, the woman was dressed in a tank top and shorts that showed off her long, very impressive legs with heavy looking boots on her feet. Her blond hair was cut short and they could see several earrings in each ear, plus a pin in one nose. She’d been in the bar earlier, dancing and drinking, but since she hadn’t been causing trouble, Beatrice had ignored her.
Beatrice read the scene. The FBC guys had cornered the woman, none were visibly armed, but the woman’s body language and hungry smile suggested this was exactly what she wanted. All of which meant it was none of their —
Ava let out a feral scream and charged, tackling the nearest goon, knocking him to the ground and beating him with wild blows. The woman immediately pivoted and lashed out at the furthest goon with a muy thai kick that frankly, was a pleasure to watch, but she was none of Beatrice’s concern. Ava was, and Beatrice pushed her sleeves up and ran in.
Within moments, it was over and the FBC were on the ground.
“Hey, thanks,” the woman said to Beatrice, “hate these assholes.” She knelt and went through the pockets of the nearest one, finding his wallet, taking all the cash and leaving the wallet on his chest. Rising, she went another one and took their money too. Beatrice supposed she should say something, but she honestly couldn’t find it in her.
“Bea?” The sound of her name, no matter how soft, got her attention instantly and she turned to see Ava . . .
Ava . . .
“Well fuck me sideways with a chainsaw,” the woman said.
That did seen to sum up the situation. Ava sat on the ground, an FBC goon on the ground in front of her, staring at her hands, from which three . . . were they claws? Blades? poked up between her fingers. They were about a foot long each, six in total, and looked to be made of bone.
“Bea?” Ava asked and Beatrice’s heart broke at the fear in her voice.
“I’m here, Ava,” Beatrice said, kneeling beside her. “We’ll figure this out.” For lack of anything better to do, Beatrice took out her handkerchief and began to try and wipe off the blood from her face and hands.
“I think I killed him, Bea.”
The woman gave the body a swift kick. “Yeah, he’s dead.” She knelt and took the guy’s wallet, stealing his cash and tossing the wallet aside.
“You’re robbing the dead guy?” Ava asked.
“No, I also robbed the living guys.” She knelt on Ava’s other side. “Lemme see.” She produced a small flashlight and gently took Ava by the wrist, shining the light around the base of the blades. “Huh.” She clicked the light off and sat back on her heels. “I take it by your totally freaked out reaction this is a new thing?”
“And your lack of reaction means you’ve seen this before,” Beatrice replied.
“Not exactly like this, but yeah.” The woman looked at Ava, tilting her head. “Your Dad’s name wouldn’t happen to be Logan, would it?”
“No idea,” Ava replied, “I don’t even know my Mom’s name.”
“Orphan?”
“Yup. So is this like a permanent thing?” Ava asked.
“Nah, you should just be able to retract them. Like flex a muscle or something.”
Ava stared down at her hands, a series of expressions crossing her face.
“Focus,” Beatrice said. “Like our katas. Feel the movement, feel what your body is doing.” Ava breathed, eyes closed.
“I . . . I think I feel them,” Ava said, “like . . . tunnels . . .”
“Good,” Beatrice soothed, “now, picture them retracting, and then pull them in. They’re going back into the tunnels.”
“Whiskers told me once she thought he like, had an extra muscle or something,” the blonde said, “flex that and snikt!” The last word seemed to be some sort of sound effect.
Ava frowned down at her hands. “Bea, I can feel them, the tunnels, but . . . it’s like . . . remember when we did firearms and you had me try to fire a gun with the safety on? Feels like that.”
The blonde’s face brightened. “Ooh, yeah, here. Make a fist, but keep your fingers separate. Wrists straight, now try.”
Ava did so, and the claws retracted with a wet, almost squish type noise, the holes closing up as they vanished. “Is it wrong that that’s both disgusting and cool?” she asked.
“Nah, it’s like a cheap ass horror movie. Gross, but in a cool way.” The blonde pulled off the fingerless gloves she’d been wearing. ”Here. Better to get your blood on the inside of gloves than all over the sidewalk or your clothes.”
“Thanks,” Ava said, “I’m Ava, this is Bea.”
“Tabitha, everyone calls me Boom-Boom.”
“You said you’d seem something like this before,” Beatrice interjected, “Logan, right? How can we contact him?”
Boom-Boom looked sad and regretful. “Well that’s the thing . . . see, I did something stupid and he hates my guts as a result, as does with everyone associated with him. My name comes up, he’s as likely to kill you as the sun rises and everyone else will just hang up. That is, if all my ways to contact them aren’t blocked, and they probably are.”
Ava stared at her. “Dude, holy shit, what did you do?”
Boom-Boom sighed. “Stupid teenage me thought getting my jollies was more important than friends. Been trying to get right ever since. Up we go.” She gripped Ava by the arm and helped her stand. “And he’s in Westchester, New York anyway. Bit far from here.”
“Yeah.”
“And there is no one who can help?” Beatrice asked.
“No one I trust . . . actually, wait a minute.” Boom-Boom pulled out her phone and tapped at it. “There might be one guy. When’s your next day off?”
“Tomorrow,” Ava said.
“Perfect. First bus out of here to the train is at five, meet me at the stop tomorrow, we have a long way to go.”
“Go where?” Beatrice asked suspiciously.
“Austria.”
“Who’s in Austria?”
“Well, depending who you ask, he’s either a demon or man of God, but he’s also the one guy who might let me talk first.”
“But?” Beatrice asked.
“He’s also the one guy who has every reason in the world to take my head off.”
“What, is he your ex or something?” Ava asked.
Boom-Boom looked sad. “In another life, he could have been.”
—————————————
Their destination was a small town in the Alps, seemingly surviving strictly on a tourism and the crossroads of the highway and train lines.
Boom-Boom led them up a couple of streets, following her phone until they came to a church proclaiming it to be Saint Alexandria’s, but more importantly was the symbol worked into the wooden sign out front. Whether Boom-Boom knew it or not, she had brought them somewhere special, and if this was the Saint Alexandria’s Beatrice thought it was . . .
The inside of the church was what most people probably pictured if you asked them to imagine a church. High ceiling, giant cross, Altar and so on. A woman in a habit was wiping down the railing, but she looked up questioningly when they entered. There was something in her expression and how she held herself that reminded Ava of the nuns of Cat’s Cradle.
“We’re looking for Father Wagner,” Boom-Boom told her.
“Ah, yes, of course, may I ask what you need?”
“Yeah, tell him Tabitha from Westchester is here and I need five minutes of his time.”
The nun tilted her head, but moved off and disappeared into one of the doors at the back of the church.
“So like, if he takes your head off, what do me and Bea do?” Ava asked.
“Hope God likes you more than me,” Boom-Boom said.
“Jeez.”
“Tabitha.” Standing by the altar was a man in a priest’s cassock and Ava stared. He was tall and lean, but his face was covered in short blue fur, his eyes twin pools of yellow light and his ears were pointed. His expression was as cold as his voice. Beatrice, however, recognized him and she said a silent prayer of thanks.
“Hey, Wagner, long time, huh?”
The man walked over to them with an almost inhuman grace and held up a timer with a three fingered hand, the display already set to five minutes. “Not long enough.” There was an undercurrent of anger in the cold bite of his words. He hit the start button.
“Yeah.” Boom-Boom gestured at Ava. “Take off the gloves and show him.”
“What, in a church? I mean, the blood.”
Wagner looked more curious than cold now and gave Boom-Boom a questioning look.
Boom-Boom sighed. “I’d gotten some of those FBC jerkwads set up for a curbstomping last night, and these two thought I was being ganged up on and jumped in. When it was all over, this one turned out to have claws. Logan type claws. Only hers are bone. Even if I could get in touch with him, Logan would take my head off before I said a word and he’s not gonna listen to them without someone to vouch for ‘em.”
Wagner hit the stop button on the timer. “So you came to me.” He seemed more thoughtful than angry now, but even glowing, his eyes were suspicious as he regarded Boom-Boom. “How do I know this isn’t some kind of scam?”
“I ain’t smart enough to run a scam, Wagner, we both know that.” She flipped him a salute. “Look, believe me or not, they need the Professor’s help, my part is done.” She gave him a sad smile. “Later, skaters.” With that, she turned and walked back towards the door.
“Hey, thanks,” Ava said. Boom-Boom waved, but when she laid a hand on the door, Wagner spoke.
“Tabitha, it’s . . . good to see you.”
She gave him a smile over her shoulder. “Good to see you too. Tell Pryde I said hi, wouldja?” She pushed open the doors and vanished into the outside world.
Wagner had a sad smile on his face when he turned to face them. “Ah, it seems we have much to discuss. The rectory is this way.”
“Actually, Father,” Beatrice said, “before that, I was wondering about your opinion of Psalms Forty-Six Five. ‘God is within her; she will not be toppled. God will help her when the morning dawns’.”
Wagner’s eyebrows rose. “It is a fine verse, but personally, I have always been fond of Jeremiah Twenty-Nine Thirteen. ‘You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.’”
Beatrice smiled as she clasped her hands together and bowed her head. “Sister Beatrice of Cat’s Cradle and this is Ava, she is the Bearer.”
Wagner’s eyes widened. “I am in exalted company indeed.” He returned her bow. “Father Kurt Wagner. Come. The walls are thicker elsewhere.”
He led them back across the church and through a door down a hallway, then through another door into a rather cozy office. A pair of sabers hung on the wall, gleaming as though recently polished, and there was what looked like bullet holes in the wall and a deep gouge in the desk. “My apologies for the mess,” Wagner told them, “Sister-Captain Nina and several of the others revealed themselves as Adriel’s pawns. Things were . . . noisy.”
“I’m sorry,” Beatrice said.
“As am I,” Wagner sighed, but busied himself with making three cups of tea. “Now, I’m afraid that before we continue, I must seek further proof. Demonstrate the Halo, if you please.”
Ava looked at Beatrice.
“Simple levitation should be fine,” Beatrice said.
Ava nodded and willed the Halo to lift her. The Halo flared and she rose up on the wings of light, slapping her hand to the ceiling and the coming back down, landing shakily and sinking into the chair.
Wagner nodded. “We are at your service, Halo Bearer.” He pushed two cups across the desk.
Beatrice did most of the explaining, starting with how Ava came to bear the Halo, the betrayal of Vincent, and the decision to hide until Ava had a better mastery of the Halo and could face Adriel properly.
As she spoke, Wagner’s face became more and more thoughtful, and even more so when Ava demonstrated the claws.
“Fascinating,” Wagner murmured, “that they are a part of you makes more sense than implants. I’ve always wondered about that, to be honest. Logan is formidable enough on his own, there was no real reason to give him claws.”
“Yeah, who’s this Logan guy?” Ava said asked, “Boomy back there was scared to death of him and she thought he was my dad.”
“More likely a part of your ancestry,” Wagner corrected, “though it is equally likely that you are one of the Numbers.”
“Ah?”
Wagner smiled. “I will attempt to be brief. Logan is the only known civilian name for a man called Wolverine.”Here Beatrice’s eyes widened and she hissed in a breath. “Ah, you have heard of him. He is perhaps the most capable and experienced fighter in the world, and he has fought in every war from at least World War Two up through Korea and possibly Vietnam. For that, he was selected for a Top Secret Program by the Canadian Government known as Weapon X and it is there that things get murky and undefined. You see, like me, Logan is a mutant, someone born with unique gifts, what you might call superpowers. Among those, is healing. Shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, regardless, he heals, and at a rapid rate, even regenerating tissue and bone as needed. Because of that, he was subjected to a process in which a metal called Adamantium was applied directly to his bones. Adamantium is unique in that not only is it rare, but nearly unbreakable. Furthermore, its melting point is three times higher than that of Tungsten. Which means that to coat his bones with it, it first had to be molten.”
Ava’s eyes widened. “You’re shitting me.”
Beatrice’s eyes were just as wide. “That must have been . . . agony.”
“Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he does not remember as the next thing Weapon X did was erase or suppress his memories to replace them with battlefield tactics, weapons and troop knowledge, combat techniques and others. Only fragments of his past remain. What happened after that is also known only in fragments, but we do know that Weapon X was shut down and Logan escaped, eventually finding his way to a school for Mutants. The founder of that school, Professor X, believes that mutations are a gift, that mutants can and should use their gifts to help humans and when necessary, protect them against those who would misuse their gifts.” Wagner looked up at the sabers. “Logan teaches combat there, and without his lessons, it is likely that Sister-Captain Nina and her cohort would have succeeded and we would not be sitting here in conversation.”
“Hail Logan,” Ava said, lifting her teacup.
Wagner laughed, lifting his cup in return. “Quite so, quite so. But to continue, Weapon X left behind one final, and perhaps, terrible legacy. They had plenty of Logan’s tissue and used it to create a number of female clones. These women, the Numbers, possess his abilities or variations of them, and while some died during the application of adamantium to their bones while still infants, many others did not, and of those, some three quarters remain unaccounted for.”
“Infants?” Ava asked in a small voice, eyes wide, “you mean babies? They . . . they put molten fucking metal into fucking babies?”
Wagner nodded. “I will not go into all their sins, but suffice it to say, that was only the start of the horrors inflicted.”
“Fuck,” Ava said, head in her hands.
“Your account, Father” Beatrice spoke up, “fits Ava as she is now, but if she is descended or cloned from Logan somehow, wouldn’t the healing ability have healed her spine as a child?”
“It is hard to say,” Wagner admitted. “I was born looking like this, but did not have any other powers until I was ten. My dear friend Kat, meanwhile, has had hers since eight. Another friend did not get his until nearly thirteen. The Numbers, meanwhile, have all had theirs for as long as they can remember.” He sighed. “I am no scientist, but it is equally possible that the Halo, upon restarting your life processes, also triggered your mutation.”
“So then the aching bones and the whole feral shit, that’s the mutation talking?”
“Ava, do your bones still ache?” Beatrice asked.
“Well . . .” Ava looked down at her hands. “Actually, now that you mention it, no. Not since last night.”
“Father, could the ache have been her claws manifesting? Growing in?”
Wagner could only shrug. “Again, it is not my area of expertise. Tabitha is right, though, you need the Professor’s help regardless.”
“Father, the Halo . . .” Beatrice said, almost warningly.
“No, I will not tell him about the Halo, though it is equally likely he knows about it already. He is a man of many secrets; his and others.” There was a knock at the door. “Yes?”
A nun poked her head in. “Father, it is three o’clock. We must begin preparing for evening service.”
“Thank you, Sari, I will be out in a few minutes.” The nun nodded and withdrew. “You are welcome to stay,” Wagner said, “we would be honored to host the Halo Bearer.”
“Regrettably, we have the opening shift tomorrow,” Beatrice said, “and our cover must be maintained.”
Wagner nodded. “Then I will take your contact information and call the Professor tonight. I will keep you apprised, but it is more than likely that he will want to meet.”
“Understood,” Beatrice said, taking out a notepad, “but if we are recalled, there may not be any time to contact you that we are on the move.” She quickly wrote down an email and phone number. Wagner did the same on a notepad and they swapped info.
“Then we’ll find you,” he said, smiling, and there was something the tiniest bit ominous in that.
————————————————
Some sort of issue had caused them to divert to a station in Northern Italy where they could change to a different train that would go back to Switzerland.
“I do not want to see the inside of a bus or train for at least the next five years,” Ava said as they sat down. “At least.” She unwrapped the cheap sandwich purchased from the equally cheap shop at the train station. “Next time, can we take a car?”
“Cars are traceable,” Beatrice said placidly, a to go cup of tea cupped in her hands. Granted, it was earl gray in name only, and the less said about the creamer (it was all they had) the better, but it was tea, it was hot, and that was all that she really cared about right now.
Ava squirted an unholy amount of packet mustard on the sandwich and then took a bite, her face immediately wrinkled up. “Crud.”
“Something wrong?”
“Wagner wasn’t kidding about the enhanced senses thing.” Ava took another bite. “If I wasn’t so hungry . . .”
Wagner had given them a few last minute bits of advice about what else Ava could conceivably expect based on what he knew of Logan, among them that her sense of smell, at the very least, would become enhanced, and that possibly extended to her other senses as well, which may or may not dovetail with the enhancements conferred on her by the Halo. He had also suggested that they test how durable Ava’s claws were. Since Logan’s could punch through pretty much anything short of Adamantium, it was possible that Ava’s claws, being made of bone, and therefore enhanced by the Halo could also punch through things that would normally break bone. Historically, the Warrior Nuns of the past had been known to punch holes in light to medium steel, and Sister Sacred, a Halo Bearer during the Sixth Crusade and the most physically powerful Halo Bearer, had once torn a knight’s armor off him as though it was wet paper. There was also a somewhat apocryohal story that she had single handedly turned the tide of a battle by picking up a barrel of cannonballs and throwing them at the enemy as she advanced.
For a time, Beatrice occupied herself with the tea and thoughts of a testing and training regimen for Ava based on what they had available. Cloth and Flesh had already been demonstrated, silk and heavy leather were likely, and it was probably best to avoid trying to punch her claws through body armor. While if it wouldn’t break the Halo Bear’s bones, it wouldn’t break the claws was probably a good rule of thumb, Beatrice also didn’t trust rules of thumb. Data was her watchword. Cold, hard, data.
She looked over at Ava, who was holding her sandwich in both hands and nibbling on it like a squirrel and was struck by a thought. Nothing about Ava was cold or hard, and it made Beatrice feel things, think things, that were not . . . mission appropriate. Beatrice had long since accepted the truth that she was a lesbian, but her parent’s upbringing had made it impossible for her to even contemplate a normal relationship with anyone. Until Ava. Ava, who upon learning what she was had told her that what she was was beautiful. It was the first acceptance she’d ever been given and that was worth more than anything else Beatrice could possibly put a name too. Vaguely she was aware of two women passing by and sitting in the seats behind them.
“Switzerland, huh?” Asked a woman’s voice and Beatrice’s head came up from her contemplation of tea. That voice . . .
“Yeah,” said another woman’s voice, “we were looking at this little resort town as a place not on the official books to lie low in case things went to shit.” That voice Beatrice knew and so did Ava. “Things have gone to shit, so . . .”
They stood up and turned around to see over the back of the seats. Directly behind them, Mary looked up at them, and next to her . . . next to her . . . next . . .”
“Shannon?” Beatrice exclaimed.
—————————————————
With no other options, Beatrice and Ava took them home. It had been a very long and slightly awkward train and bus ride back to the town and then walking to the apartment. There was a lot to talk about and none of it should be done in public.
“Cozy,” Mary commented as they entered the apartment. Beatrice immediately went to the kitchen to make tea.
“We’re supposed to be students and stuff,” Ava explained.
“Good cover as any,” Mary said agreed. Both she and . . . Shannon, apparently, set down their heavy packs, and stripped out of thick jumpers. Mary’s hair was shorter, looking like it had been hacked off with a knife or something, while Shannon wore her hair even shorter than Camila, almost a crew cut. Both women wore baggy t-shirts and Shanon’s left arm was encased in some sort of armored gauntlet from the elbow down, a cross cut into the forearm that glowed with a faint light.
“It’s not much,” Beatrice said, coming over with a tray. She set it down and then looked at Shannon. “I would appreciate it if you took that off,” she said, nodding at the gauntlet.
“All right,” Shannon agreed. She twisted her wrist to the right, causing the cross to go dark and then she grabbed the gauntlet with her right hand and pulled it off, revealing a cloth covered stump. A metal band encircled her arm just below the elbow, and they could see circuitry embedded directly into the skin, looking almost like a tattoo. “Should charge this anyway.”
“That is so cool!” Ava exclaimed.
“Oh!” Beatrice gasped, I . . . I’m sorry. I . . ”
Shannon waved it off. “You’re not the first one to think so. Airport security is the worst, though.”
“Ah, yes, I suppose so,” Beatrice agreed, cheeks still red with embarrassment. Shannon got up, washed the compression sleeve in water, then hung it over the shower faucet to dry. She then wiped down the inside of the arm with rubbing alcohol and then plugged it into a wall socket to charge.
“Guess that makes sense,” Ava said. “I mean, you would think it would require some fancy power source, but you can’t be lugging some specific charger around.”
“I used to,” Shannon admitted. “This is the third generation. The first two required a specific charger and a highly specialized power source. This one, I can charge it off pretty much anything. The cross is even a solar cell.”
“Dang.”
“We still need an explanation,” Beatrice said. “How are you both alive? You especially,” she said to Shannon. “I . . . I saw you die. I was a pallbearer at your funeral. You are dead. I saw you die.”
Shannon and Mary exchanged glances. “Ah . . .” Shannon began, “That’s the thing . . . strictly speaking, I’m not Shannon, not the one you knew.” She held up her stump. “Your Shannon didn’t have one of these, did she?”
“Oh my God, you’re from another universe!” Ava exclaimed.
“A parallel reality?” Beatrice asked, disbelieving.
“I saw her come through the portal myself,” Mary said. “Helluva thing.” She took a breath. “So I was getting swarmed, right? Well just as they had me under, the floor gave out. I fell into a sort of sub-basement or something and a few of them came down with me. Without a target, guess the others went off to do whatever. Killed the ones down there, made my way out and promptly got sidelined by some FBC fucks who dragged me off to their safe house. I think they wanted me for entertainment, but I cut them a deal. I’d do the cooking and cleaning, but in exchange, no one laid a hand on me or I’d kill them. Guess they figured free staff was better than entertainment and agreed.”
“That doesn’t seem like you,” Ava said, “kinda figured you’d go down fighting them than play household servant.”
“Normally, I would,” Mary said, “but I had enough time on the trip to the safe house to think. See, thing about being both black and a servant to white folks is that you’re invisible on both counts as long as you keep your head down and mouth shut unless spoken to. So that’s what I did. Mouth shut, eyes and ears open, Breakfast at seven, lunch at noon, dinner at five, and cleaning on Sundays. They weren’t dumb enough to let me leave to get groceries, and the doors were passcode locked, but all I had to was leave a grocery list and someone went and bought everything. Or ordered it. Eventually they stopped paying attention and tonight, I was all set to serve up a nice big pot of rat poison soup when Shannon showed up.”
“In my universe, I am the Warrior Nun,” Shannon took up the story, “but my power comes not from a Halo like yours, but rather that I am the Avatar of Areala, a valkyrie of Asgard who renounced Odin after meeting Jesus. Her spirit lives inside me and through her, and by the grace of God, I battle the Forces of Hell.” She sipped her tea. “However, my most persistent foe, my nemesis, I suppose, is a man named Salvius, who is actually Julian the Apostate, rendered somehow immortal. Appropriate, I suppose, Apostate versus Apostate.”
“Man, that sounds like . . . a lot,” Ava said then turned to Beatrice. “Who’s Julian the Apostate?”
“Third century Roman Emperor,” Beatrice said, “he was referred to as an Apostate for his desire to move the Roman Empire away from Christianity and back to the old Pagan ways. His successor Jovian, re-embraced Christianity, but was also the last Emperor of Rome before it split into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires.”
“Salvius refashioned himself as a crime boss and arms dealer,” Shannon continued, “I think the money has come to matter more to him than restoration of the old ways, but I cannot let him win. Our battles have always ended in a stalemate, but then he got his hands on a weapon of . . . exotic matter, let’s call it. If triggered, ninety-five percent of humanity would die and it was keyed to my bio-signature on a proximity trigger. Then he offered me a choice. Go through a portal to another reality, or risk detonating the weapon and being responsible for the death of . . . billions. I was outnumbered, outgunned, and I’m not a scientist or engineer. Even with Areala’s wisdom and experience, the odds of successfully disarming the weapon before it went off were against me.”
“Sometimes, you have to lose the battle to win the war,” Beatrice said.
Shannon nodded. “Salvius is a man of his word, so I agreed to the go through the portal of my own free will if he let my friends and allies walk free. He kept his word and I kept mine.” She shrugged. “Here I am.”
Beatrice considered. As an OCS member, she’d heard stranger things, witnessed weirder things, and frankly, having Mary and Shannon - well, a Shannon - back, helped even the odds. “Ava, are they possessed?”
“Mary isn’t,” Ava said, and then pointed at Shannon, “but she’s giving off something, I dunno, funky? But like, in a good way.”
“Have to admit, was wondering about that,” Mary said. Then to Shannon, “sorry.”
“Not at all. From what you’ve told me, I’d be more worried if you didn’t wonder about it.”
“A good way?” Beatrice repeated.
“I dunno, just like, the Halo is happy and the wolverine is too.”
“The wolverine?” Mary asked.
“Oh, yeah, so there’s another update.” Ava popped her claws.
“HOLY SHIT!” Mary yelled.
——————————————————
Mary took the couch, Shannon, being one of those people who could sleep anywhere and at any time took the floor and all of them were up the next morning, perhaps short on sleep, but they had slept.
“So now what?” Ava asked as she and Mary worked to make breakfast out for four out of their meager supplies.
“Well from what you’ve said, Cat’s Cradle is out,” Mary said. “I guess like you, we have to wait for Adriel to do something.”
“You could come work at the bar with us,” Ava said brightly, “I mean, wasn’t the owner saying he’d like to get the kitchen running again?”
Mary shrugged, “I can do bar food. What are we talking, nachos and stuff?”
“Small cakes, nut bowls, we could probably figure out nachos,” Beatrice mused, “but the menu is also very out of date, part of why the last cook quit.”
“I’ve done waitressing work,” Shannon said, “admittedly it was while undercover . . . and for only a week. Are you sure we would get hired?”
“We have an in with the manager,” Ava said assuredly.
———————————————————
Beatrice led them into the bar and up the stairs to the loft where she pulled the application forms and clipboards from their assigned places and passed them over with pens.
“So when the does the manager get in?” Mary asked as she and Shannon sat on some crates to fill out them out.
Beatrice sat at the desk. “I am the manager,” she said. Ava howled with laughter as Mary and Shannon stared at Beatrice, who gave them a placid smile.
“The looks on your faces!” Ava cheered, “WHOO!” She turned and skipped down the stairs, giggling.
“Dear God, she’s infected you with a sense of humor,” Mary said.
“I’m strangely comfortable with that, to be honest,” Beatrice admitted.
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After going over the kitchen and the bar menu, Mary eighty-sixed the whole thing. She then picked four items; Nachos, Fried Cheese Sticks, Quick thaw wings, and tiny square cut grilled cheese sandwiches. All came with dipping sauces and with the owner’s approval, a week long test run was given the green light.
Business didn’t quite boom, most of the customers were there to drink, especially on weekends, but they proved popular with the weekday crowd who came in to watch sports and complain to whoever was behind the bar and to each other about whatever was bothering them. At the very least, the food was popular enough that the owner gave his approval to continue.
From a business standpoint, Beatrice was pleased. Ava and Shannon had developed a sales patter based largely on Ava’s fondness for low cut shirts and the blue of Shannon’s eyes as well as the general air of untouchableness that seemed to hover around her.
“That Miguel guy is back,” Shannon reported as she came upstairs to deposit the massive amount of tips she was getting into her bag. “I’m . . . there’s something . . . off about him.”
“Off how?” Beatrice asked, suddenly on alert. Miguel was, to put it simply, extremely pleasant to look at. “Easy on the eyes” as her grandmother would put it, and lesbian or not, even Beatrice could admit that he was extremely attractive. He also seemed to have an intense interest in Ava, which absolutely tripped Beatrice’s professional paranoia circuit and not her feelings for her.
Ava, however, didn’t seem to notice, and would flirt with him, the same as she would anyone else. Which didn’t hurt at all.
At all.
She wasn’t jealous. She wasn’t.
“I’m not sure, it’s just a feeling, but he’s . . . out of place. I don’t know how else to describe it.” Shannon made a noise of annoyance as she tugged on the elbow length glove that covered her artificial arm and was strapped in place with a velcro and elastic band. The arm itself apparently had a “civilian” mode where the hand could only open and close and the wrist had to be manually rotated, and as far as the owner and other employees were concerned, the glove was to protect the arm from bits of food and other things. “I don’t think he’s entirely human though.”
The part of Beatrice that was absolutely not jealous aside, she couldn’t kick him out of the bar simply for not being human, and it could be he was just taken with Ava and who wouldn’t be charmed by her?
“Keep an eye on him,” Beatrice said, “that’s all we can do.”
“You got it,” Shannon agreed and went back downstairs.