Chapter Seventeen
Several more NCH alumni came in, driving past them to look for parking spots, while they waited on the sidewalk for Lanie to get out of her Jeep, unload her wheelchair and join them. Jane wondered why Kurt didn't go to help, but then she felt the flicker of Gift in use. She realized Lanie still had enough telekinetic strength and control, despite her broken back stealing most of that gift, to get her wheelchair out of the Jeep. She shuddered, wondering if she would have done half as well as Lanie seemed to, adapting to life with a broken body and broken Gift.
"Oh, you're going to have tongues wagging all over town," Lanie said as she glided up the shallow lip of the sidewalk from the parking lot. She snorted and looked pointedly at how close together they stood.
"Um— We—" Jane gave up, and refused to tug free of Kurt's arm linked through hers. Granted, they had agreed to tell any nosey child who asked that yes, she was Mr. Kurt's new girlfriend. The problem was that no one had asked yet.
"Target sighted," Kurt said.
"That was fast. Who?" Lanie asked.
"Kelly and Kory."
Lanie whistled, nodding slowly. They couldn't talk for a few minutes, as other alumni joined them, heading for the front doors. Jane was almost grateful for the interruptions, even though she caught several people giving second and third wide-eyed, sometimes grinning, glances to her arm looped together with Kurt's. Obviously no one was used to him being paired with anyone. A little less obvious, because she had to think about it, was the indication that people were glad. So, Kurt was well liked.
Why wouldn't he be? He was a great guy. A little too defensive of his town, but was that a bad thing?
Jane pushed those thoughts aside for later. She had to deal with people who were trying to remember her, if they had been in NCH at the same time. Some had vague memories, and her cheeks warmed several times as various people welcomed her and made a point of telling anyone else they ran into, "Have you met Jane Wilson? Do you remember her? She was here when..." and then launched into a memory. She said a few prayers as dinner began that the bullies she had stood up against wouldn't be among those who showed up.
She and Kurt and Lanie didn't have a chance to speak privately, but later on she looked up a few times to see the two of them in obviously secretive postures, talking. In a way, she was relieved. Let Kurt explain things to Lanie. They knew the twins much better than she did. They would have a better idea how to approach the girls and explain that they had superpowers and a responsibility to use them for good, not for mischief. Although Jane had to admit what they did to Evan to protect Penny was not mischief. It just needed tempering and some maturity in their reactions.
When the evening ended, Jane kept watch on the twins and Penny. She was relieved to see the older girl really did like the twins. As if they were her younger sisters in truth. She smiled, feeling a little teary, as Penny guided the twins through polite thank-yous and farewells with the adults who had come for dinner and homework help, and made sure they put their coats and gloves and boots on for the short walk to their cottage.
"So, you think she'll be relieved or she'll miss them when they're gone?" Lanie said quietly, when she came up behind Jane as she watched the three walk around the far side of the administration building.
"Gone?" Jane nearly slid into Ghost phase and rose up two feet in the air.
"They need teaching, and we're not set up to teach them. Not twins. Not smart ones who already figured out how to use what they've got." She tugged her coat closer around herself.
"You want me to call Demetrius and Reginald to come get them?" Jane wasn't quite sure how she felt about the idea. Granted, the twins would probably love being the sole students of the Sanctum, and Demetrius and Reginald were likely to spoil them. The question was if her two teachers, who had been ancient when she became their youngest student, were up to handling mischievous twins.
"That's the idea so far. We should take this up with Angela, first. And get into the records, to see if they're Lost Boys, or something else." Lanie glanced over her shoulder as headlights touched her.
Jane was disoriented for a moment to see Lanie's Jeep pull up to the sidewalk next to them. Then she realized Kurt was driving. It took another moment of thought to figure out what was going on. They were going to go to Divine's Emporium in Lanie's Jeep, and she and Kurt could just fly back to get his truck. That made sense, and it gave them time to talk before conferring with Angela.
The drive over to Divine's didn't take long, and most of it was spent discussing what Jane had seen and Kurt had heard, and speculating why Lanie and Kurt and Felicity hadn't noticed anything unusual when they were around the twins before. Their ability to tap into Jane's recent memories, even for something as harmless as the shipment she had unpacked, was cause for alarm and an indication of their potential strength. Lanie agreed with Kurt's assessment that the twins weren't vindictive and would see the fun side of their powers rather than their chance to take revenge on people who didn't give them their way.
"I'll ask Athena to hack into the records," Angela said, when they had settled down in her quarters. "She can determine if the twins were found, or they came to Neighborlee some other way."
"What if Athena finds out the girls aren't Lost Boys like us?" Jane asked.
"Stanzer." Lanie grinned when Jane just gave her a confused frown. "The local P.I. He has some otherworldly background of his own. Cuts down on the need to explain things and worry that we'll blow his mind."
In the end, Angela agreed that no matter what they learned about the twins' background before coming to the orphanage, the Sanctum would have to be contacted. Demetrius and Reginald were experienced in training Gifted children, with good results. She did stipulate that she wanted to talk to the two elderly men before they got to work pulling strings to get custody of the twins.
"Oh, boy, I would love to be a fly on the wall when that clash of the titans takes place," Kurt muttered, as he and Jane and Lanie headed down the sidewalk, leaving Divine's Emporium shortly after eleven.
"The Old Poops are nothing compared to Angela," Jane said, stifling a need to giggle. "She's going to scold them for being too oblivious to sense that Neighborlee could take care of its own. They won't be able to get a word in edgewise."
"So, you're going with her?" Lanie said. She glanced at her Jeep and the door swung open.
"Going with— Me?"
Lanie's keys lifted from her pocket and shot through the air to take a sharp turn around the windshield and into the car.
"We didn't really agree, but I figure you're going to see your teachers tonight, get things rolling," Kurt said, shrugging and jamming his fists into his pocket. They both flinched when Lanie's Jeep started up. "Maybe you want some moral support."
"You can't fool me," she said with a snort and a grin. "You just want to see the Sanctum."
"Heck, yeah. We always wanted a Bat Cave. Or maybe the Sanctum's more along the lines of Xavier's school for the gifted?" He bowed and stepped off the sidewalk, letting Lanie slide her wheelchair past him, to head for her car.
"You two have fun," Lanie called over her shoulder as a flicker of rainbow-tinted light spun around her wheels and she slid down from the sidewalk to the street without a bump. "Just not too much fun. We've already got people speculating on how soon until Kurt sticks a crowbar in his wallet and buys you a ring."
"We do— They are?" Jane's face felt hot enough to steam in the icy night air. Despite the shadows, the bluish tint the moonlight gave everything, Kurt's face definitely looked as red as hers felt. She muffled a giggle as she shifted into Ghost phase and shot up into the air.
Kurt caught up with her before it occurred to her that she should slow down and stay within his range. He pulled ahead of her and gestured toward the orphanage. She nodded and they flew in silence to get his truck. After she called and talked to Reginald, to let him know they were coming, they rode in silence to the parking lot behind her building.
"Loo
k," he said with a sigh as they got out of the truck, just as she was about to activate the Ghost field again. "I've never really had a girlfriend. Nobody ever stuck around long enough for people to start talking—"
"That's probably why people are talking, because we've been seen holding hands and the whole game, letting the kids think I belong to you."
"The thing is... I don't want to mess things up, okay? I like you. Maybe you like me, despite how I did mess things up. So can we go slow?"
"I think..." She slid partially into Ghost phase, so she could rise up a few feet but he could still see her. "I think we're going to be so busy straightening out everything with the twins and the Voice, that ought to give us time to think, figure it all out. Slow enough?"
"Oh, yeah." He grinned, and then a moment later went invisible. Jane felt the momentary buzz in her fingertips from him accessing the Ghost field.
They raced each other, as much as they could race without getting so far apart he fell out of the limits of the zone where he could borrow her Ghost abilities. Going so fast, it took all Jane's concentration to point out landmarks below them, and then to share bits and pieces about Reginald and Demetrius to give him an idea of the old men who had been her fathers and teachers and role models.
When she led Kurt down the hallway into the library, Demetrius and Reginald were waiting with a roaring fire and a tray of sandwiches and hot cider on one end of the long council meeting table. Jane introduced Kurt and braced for comments from her teachers, either defensive or teasing or an avalanche of questions.
The silence was worse than anything she could have imagined.
Kurt must have imagined something much worse, because after a few moments he just took a step back, jammed his fingers into his pockets, and grinned. A few more moments of silence, he glanced at the tray of food, glanced at the empty seats on the other side of the table, picked up two plates, borrowed Jane's Gift just long enough to lift food onto the plates—earning flinches and stares from Reginald and Demetrius—and sat down. Jane felt decidedly awkward as she slid into the chair next to his.
"So you're the Old Poops," he said, voice thoughtful. "Jane said she hadn't made much of a report yet, but I met Katie, so I'm guessing you know something."
"Old Poops." Reginald's shoulders shook, silent laughter making a lie of the brow-lowered glare he aimed at Kurt. "Keep it up. You might just prove you're good enough for our gal."
"Reggie—" Jane blurted.
"It's all right, cookie," Demetrius said, and slouched down to his trademark comfortable listening posture. "We guessed enough from what Katie didn't tell us. So, I'm guessing you have an offer of alliance from the powers-that-be in Neighborlee?"
"No time for that. We have a set of twins whose powers are starting to wake up, way too early, and we're dealing with a chronic problem that we don't want them to experience."
"Chronic problem?" He raised one eyebrow so far it vanished into his shaggy hairline, and glanced at Jane.
"All that weirdness that happened at New Year's was basically from an interdimensional threat that tries periodically to break through into Neighborlee. It might be a disembodied voice that's been trying to pull a good buddies, us-against-the-universe, nobody-understands-you-like-me scam on me." Jane clasped the mug of hot cider in both hands and held it close enough the steam bathed her face. "And trying a psionic vampire routine at the same time."
"Do tell," Reginald murmured. "I think we're going to need something far stronger by the time we're done sharing information."
Kurt tipped his head and frowned at Jane. She just grinned, remembering his comment about "girls and chocolate," during an earlier war conference. Reginald and Demetrius had some long, convoluted pseudo-scientific explanation for why chocolate seemed to be a tonic and mental booster. When they wanted something stronger, they brought in the stockpiles of various chocolate items. The seriousness of the situation and the length of the discussion to deal with the problem could be measured by the ratio of chocolate to whatever it accompanied. Jars of hot fudge topping, eaten straight from the jar rather than spooned on ice cream or used to dip chocolate cream Oreos, indicated a world-threatening crisis.
"Janie-gal, will you do the honors?" Demetrius said. "And send a Gamma-level message to the residence halls, in case anyone who's home cares to participate?"
Amelia Quinn and Theo Brickman were the only former students currently in residence, and they had both hurried downstairs by the time Jane came up from the larder with a tea cart piled with chocolate provisions. Amelia brushed a kiss on Jane's forehead as she passed her in the hall, and hurried into the kitchen. The seventy-three-year-old wisp of a woman preferred to have her chocolate mixed with coffee as black as her skin and eyes, and had a special blend kept under lock and key that she preferred to prepare for herself.
"Bless you," Theo said, reaching around Jane to snatch the two bottles of Tabasco sauce from the cart.
When the TV show "Roswell" had played, he had been intrigued by the alien teens' penchant for spicy-sweet combinations, such as drenching chocolate cake with hot sauce. Then he had tried it, became addicted, and regularly went through four bottles a month. Since he had retired from the road and lived almost year-round at the Sanctum, Jane knew it was a good guess he would be involved in the conference, so she had brought the bottles.
Kurt, Reginald and Demetrius seemed to have come to some sort of consensus—or maybe just a truce—by the time Jane and the others joined them. She wasn't at all comforted by Reginald's grin and wink and the exaggerated tip of his head toward Kurt. Then there was no time to indulge in personal panic attacks. She made quick introductions as the six of them settled around one end of the long table, and then turned everything over to Kurt, since he knew the history of Big Ugly or the Voice or the Oil Slick Monster, if they were one and the same or three different nemeses.
* * * *
"People are gonna talk," Kurt said, as he and Jane landed in her living room at eight the next morning.
The war council had lasted until three in the morning, then she had settled Kurt in one of the guest rooms while she took her old room. They slept until six, had a hurried breakfast, and flew back to Neighborlee. Demetrius and Reginald planned to spend the day digging up all the information they could find on Kelly and Kory before assembling the paperwork and false histories they would need to take custody of the twins. If all went well, they would arrive in Neighborlee by the weekend.
"Talk about what?" Jane thought about taking a long, hot soak in her tub, preferably with some of her herbal bath powder to ease away the tension aches. Some aromatherapy to help clear her mind and prepare for the strain of the next few days of waiting would be helpful. She couldn't exactly dive into the tub while Kurt was there, though.
Then her brain latched onto the present situation, and that crooked, slightly sheepish, slightly mischievous twist to his mouth.
"If you leave in the next five minutes, we should be safe. Most of the businesses around here, people don't start arriving to open up until around nine."
"Yeah, that's true." He hitched one hip up onto the stool at the breakfast bar he had built for her only two weeks ago. "Would it be so bad if people...talked?"
"About us, you mean?" Jane shrugged. "I guess it depends on what you want to have happen from all that talking."
"Laying my claim, mostly. Before other guys figure out you're here." He focused on his interlaced fingers, his hands tight-pressed together on the counter.
Jane knew she hadn't spent enough time with Kurt to interpret all his little mannerisms, but she guessed that his inability to look her in the eyes, for almost the first time, was significant. That had her heart racing for a few seconds.
Funny, but she felt more clear-headed than she had in a long while. Maybe since before the Voice started touching her dreams.
"I had the best night's sleep last night," she said, testing the idea aloud. That got a confused frown from Kurt. "No intruder, no weird dreams."
"Uh huh. That's good. Look about what I was saying—"
"Kurt, I'm flattered that you're interested, but I think we need to figure out why you're interested and I'm flattered."
That got another confused frown, which earned a bubble of laughter. She shook her head and stepped over to the refrigerator. Definitely, he wasn't going to be leaving before anyone saw and recognized his truck behind the building. She decided they might as well be comfortable and have a second breakfast while they worked things out.
"Okay, the short version is that some of us have gotten the idea we're expected to pair up and start producing the next generation. This creepazoid basically told me to start planning the wedding, it didn't matter if we got along or not."
"You think I'm latching onto you because you're the first female of the species that I don't see as a sister." Kurt nodded. "Maybe. But maybe it's a lot of hormones, a handful of feeling like I've been waiting for someone like you for a long time."
"Hormones, huh?" Jane grinned into the refrigerator as she pulled out milk, juice, butter, and the raspberry-cheese sweet roll that was so moist it needed refrigeration.
"Along the lines of, 'Mama, get me one of those,' just about the first time I laid eyes on you."
"Hormones... That's a lot better than feeling like the continuation of the species rests on us." She set the provisions down on the counter, and was pleased more than she liked to admit, when Kurt jumped up and reached for plates and cups before she could turn around. Was it good that he felt comfortable enough in her kitchen to help? Or was this another part of "staking his claim"?
Did she really mind that he was staking his claim? She had been hoping for an ordinary guy, one who didn't have semi-pseudo-super powers, who would want her for the girl he saw and not her potential to give birth to an even better, second generation model of superhero.
"Jane?" Kurt reached from far across the room and caught hold of her wrists. His voice sounded stretched and distant.
Hero Blues Page 26