"maybe there's no haven in this world for tender age my heart beat like the wings of wild birds in a cage my greatest hope my greatest cause to grieve and my heart flew from its cage and it bled upon my sleeve..."

          Indigo Girls "Prince Of Darkness"

There was little movement in the rubble of what had once been a midtown suburb. Thanks to the near total eradication of all sentient life in the area and the heat-trapping pollution covering most of the former United States, it now resembled a beginning jungle. A carpet-like growth of short weeds and moss covered the ground. Tough, unnatural-looking vines trailed over the remains of buildings, vehicles... and people. Small nocturnal mammals ran in and out of skulls and ribcages that were strewn here and there like macabre lawn ornaments.

In the ruins of home, a shadow moved within a shadow, and a shape slowly emerged. The huge purple feline gave the fetid air another cautious sniff and looked over her shoulder.

"All clear, half-friend Wisdom!" Catseye yowled loudly, breaking the total silence as well as a plasma cannon could have.

"Christ on a fuckin' crutch...!"

"Pete, please."

"Well if she ain't alerted everything within earshot, we'll be just fine, now won't we?"

One by one, the rest of the motley crew emerged from behind Pete Wisdom and quickly cased the place. It was a good place to stop for the night, but an ideal place to be ambushed. But the telepathic Arron Hlessil and Meggan Wisdom, an empath as well as Pete's wife, sensed no one. Catseye had already padded over to Jimaine Szardos, whom she called "mother" for a reason no one could fathom.

Jimaine scratched Catseye's ears absentmindedly and looked around for the final member of their band. He was harder to spot in shadow than Catseye was. After a few minutes of squinting and scanning, she saw the form of Kurt Darkholme standing quietly in the shade of a partially collapsed wall. Catseye followed her gaze and stalked off in disgust.

It had been several days since the demonesque young man had chosen to accompany them on a mission that he still had no clue about. And though it was unusual for him to say more than a dozen words in a day if not spoken to directly, Jimaine was glad that he had.

Pete, on the other hand, was getting more and more surly every single day. To his perpetually suspicious mind, Kurt presented a definite security risk. The dark-haired Brit didn't enjoy having Darkholme around one bit.

Meggan and Arron, always quick to adapt to new situations, took the new arrival in stride. Meggan's lack of concern came from the fact that if Kurt did try anything, she could kill him with a thought. There was no reason at all for her to be flustered.

Arron's own easy-going nature usually leaned towards giving people the benefit of the doubt. That and the fact that he had his telepathy to back up his instincts made him feel pretty secure. As far as he could tell, Darkholme really wasn't a bad egg. True, he had a lot of free- floating hostility cluttering up his mind and usually focused it on whoever happened to be talking to him at the time, but it wasn't anything really worrisome. One thing about Darkholme that did raise a bit of interest in Arron's mind was a tremendous amount of guilt in Darkholme's. But Arron figured that, as long as they didn't present any danger to his friends, that everyone had personal demons that they were entitled to.

Catseye was decidedly with Pete in her opinion of Kurt. If possible, she trusted him less that Wisdom did. Compound that with the fact that MotherMother Szardos spent more time trying to draw blue-stink-Kurt- enemy into conversation than she did paying attention Catseye. Nor had Catseye forgotten the earlier humiliation of being caught off guard and having had to depend on the others to save her. Darkholme couldn't make a move without her knowing it. She liked it that way but was still looking for an excuse, any excuse, to turn him into a scratching post.

As for Kurt himself, he supposed that throwing his lot in with this bunch was better than being dead... in most ways. He didn't trust these people or expect to be trusted by them. He simply wanted to pull his own weight in the group and be left alone and for the most part, his fellow travelers seemed to get the message. Except for that Szardos witch. She simply refused to buzz off. And there she was again, just staring at him as if he had something that belonged to her. Well, he'd had just about of it. It had been a rotten day, with Wisdom and the verdammt Catseye both ragging on him every chance that came up and he didn't want to be stared at by some flatscan. B A M F !

"See something interesting?" Kurt snapped, materializing right in front of her. To his disappointment, she didn't jump out of her skin. She didn't even wrinkle her nose at the smell of brimstone.

"Maybe." Szardos gave him a long appraising glance. Kurt shifted position slightly, feeling as if he were being measured up and found wanting. "Do you have few minutes? I need to talk to you."

"Do I look like I'm being besieged with requests for my company?" Jimaine glared at him, but said nothing. Finally, she brushed past him and walked away. Feeling oddly uncomfortable for having upset her, Kurt followed.

*Find anything, luv?*

Meggan Wisdom shook her head automatically, remembered that he husband couldn't see her response, and replied in thought, trusting that Arron would relay her message just as he was transmitting Pete's.

*Nothing yet. No sign of Yvette, Spoor, or the refugees.*

*Fuck. Well, get back over here before someone sees you.*

*Lover, you're paranoid. What will someone do if they do happen to see me? Shoot me down?*

*Exactly.* The full force of his worry and love came through his thoughts. Meggan dropped from the sky and flew low until she reached the group again. Once she moved back from her embrace with Pete, she noticed that Pete was still edgy.

Arron noticed too and already knew the cause. "Wisdom, he's not going to screw our mission while having a conversation with Jimaine."

"So you say." Pete grumbled back.

"All right, I'm listening. What is it you need to talk about?"

Jimaine settled herself on a pile of rubble and went directly to the point. "You're Raven's son."

Kurt was instantly on the defensive. "What of it?"

"You knew my mother."

"I've known a lot of people. I doubt I'd remember her."

Jimaine stiffened. "I hope to Gott that you're simply being flippant. She saved your life. Yours and your mother's."

A faint memory rose in Kurt's mind. Not a story... just information that his mother had let him in on in a particularly desperate moment. It had been almost ten years since he'd thought about the people his mother had told him about had cared very little for people probably years dead that he didn't even remember. Still, he thought he could remember if he tried.

"Szardos," he muttered almost to himself. "Margali Szardos?" Jimaine nodded. "Yes, my mother told me..." He clammed up. "Why is this so important? I don't know anything about you or your past. I can't tell you what a wonderful person your mother was. I don't even recall her face or ever having met her."

Jimaine wasn't even looking at him now. "Let me tell you a story, Darkholme. If it still makes little difference to you, then you may keep your past confined to the nooks and crannies of your consciousness." She took a deep, shuddering breath and plowed on.

"Once, there was a girl named Jimaine Szardos. She grew up very care- free, very happy. Jimaine's world was just starting to become complex by the time she had turned twelve. The traveling circus that her family belonged to, Der Jamarkt, was growing in size. Jimaine and her older brother, Stefan, had been a part of the acrobatics act for as long as she could remember, and her skills were improving even then. She was even becoming curious about the boys in the towns that they stopped in. And most importantly, her mother, Margali, was beginning to teach her some simple spells, illusions that a young girl might find useful. The flowing of power through her young body was painful, but Margali had assured her that once she knew how, it would stop. Jimaine felt that the pain was worth the chance to be a sorceress.

"Then, her world changed... for the worse. Jimaine had been walking back from her practice alone. Stefan was flirting with one of the bareback riders behind the main tent. That mattered little enough to the young girl. She was proud of herself. During practice, she had felt her hands starting to slip on the trapeze. She had used an illusion to cover her blunder as she regained her grip on the slick bar. No one had noticed. But now she felt as if she had been kicked by a horse. Jimaine felt that a nap before the night's performance was in order.

"Halfway back to her dressing room, Jimaine heard an odd noise. Like the whoosh that the fire-eater gave when he spit out flame. Jimaine turned, thinking that maybe Ol' Hothead (as everyone knew him) was trying to scare her. She had several sharp words on her tongue, but they all vanished when she saw what was happening. Three PEOPLE were dangling... flying!... in the sky, and two were on the ground.

"The three in the air were firing weapons down on the members of the circus, but the two on the ground were generating a white fire from the air. They were going through the performers, burning them to charred lumps. The scent of their seared flesh would have made her retch, if she could have moved. Above the screams and the weapons, Jimaine heard one of the people on the ground say something that sounded like "None of you are worthy..."

"Before she could move, Stephan ran up behind her and gave her a push. 'Jimaine, MOVE! RUN GIRL!' he yelled to her, trying to shock her into movement. He grabbed her hand and dragged her after him. Somehow, Jimaine finally got control of her legs, and ran with him. Their Mother was with them in another minute. One of the people in the air saw them, took aim, and fired. Jimaine's brother fell with a hole burned neatly through his head.

"She never recalled much concerning their flight from Der Jamarkt after that. Her next clear memory was being hugged close to her mother as they crouched in a dirty hiding place, like animals gone to earth.

"After that, Margali started to bring Jimaine's powers to full as soon as possible. Margali knew that sooner or later, one of them would most likely be caught, or killed, and she was taking precautions to her daughter's survival, just in case Margali was the one who was caught first.

"If Jimaine had thought that conjuring up simple illusions was painful, it was nothing compared to what she had to go through now. At first, once she went past a certain mystic level, she would simply black out. Even though she became accustomed to it, many a time she would come back from a sorceress trance with tears of pain running down her face, and not be aware of it.

"But still Margali pushed her. Jimaine never resented her mother for this, despite the pain, and the constant running and hiding, for she remembered the screams and the smell of burnt flesh at Der Jamarkt. She came to her full power barely two months after the culling."

Kurt jumped slightly as Szardos shifted her position and then continued with her story.

"The day that Margali had feared came several years afterward. They had been pushing through a heavily wooded area, Margali in front, Jimaine behind her, guarding the rear. Margali parted some branches and came face to face with an Infinite. She had been to surprised to move, but the Infinite hadn't hesitated. It had raised its weapon, and fires. Margali died before even trying to warn her daughter. Jimaine managed to raise a partial mystic shield, but most of the weapon broke through, leaving the girl injured and unconscious. The Infinite took Margali's body for gene fodder and Jimaine for the pens. If not for a truly noble soul operating from inside that chunk of hell on Earth, I'd be there yet ... or perhaps not. Herr McCoy's 'pets' do not last long. This much I have seen myself." She gave Kurt another frank gaze and lifted her shirt to show him the white web of precise, clean scars woven across her stomach, ribs, and lower breasts. "I was lucky."

Nightcrawler felt new respect for the woman before him. Not pity or sympathy for her past. Her story was common enough. Almost everyone had one as tragic or worse in their past. But he'd seen those that made it out of the Dark Beast's lab as well. Some had lost their minds simply from what they had seen done in that place. Szardos was no weakling at least.

Jimaine began talking again. "I know that you don't remember my mother, Darkholme. But she recalled you and Raven very vividly. I'd simply like to know why. She kept a picture of the three of you in her trailer, but she'd never tell me how you met. Always said that it would give me nightmares and that she'd tell me when I was older. Obviously, she didn't live that long. So I'm asking you to tell me."

Kurt knew that he didn't owe Jimaine Szardos this. It was his past and he was entitled to keep it quiet if he wished. But part of him, a fairly good sized part, wanted to tell her about himself.

"All right." he said, stepping towards her. This time, she did pull back a little. She'd obviously not been expecting him to approach her. He settled down fairly close to her and began his own tale...

To be continued in part Seven...