Author's Note: For Ian, Harry and Chris, with thanks for a memorable evening at Lucky Chang's.
Disclaimer: Characters herein are the property of Marvel and Fox.
She was in the wrong place. From the minute she walked in the door, Frankie the bartender knew she was there by accident.
Across the street in front of Mama Lulu's tourists were lining up for a "Vampire hunt," middle aged ladies with well-thumbed copies of Anne Rice, girls in denim with rhinestone bracelets and David Bowie sunglasses, playing at being freaks.
This girl wasn't even playing. She had long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, jean shorts and a Columbia University t-shirt, somebody's kid sister or college girlfriend who had gotten the address wrong. She sat down near the bar and made a big deal out of looking at the menu on the table.
Valentine's was almost empty. It was 6:30, and in New Orleans that's not even evening. The sun was still up and it was 95 degrees outside, and only ten degrees cooler in the bar. Most of the folks who came to Valentine's were just getting out of bed.
"Could I have a Coors Light?" she asked.
He knew she didn't know. "Sure. But are you sure you're in the right place? The restaurant's not open yet."
"Oh yes." She sounded cheerful and confident. "I'm sure my boyfriend gave me the right address."
That clinched it. "Miss, I think someone is playing a joke on you."
Her big blue eyes were puzzled. "A joke?"
Frankie kind of felt sorry for her. "Not a nice joke. See, this isn't a bar for girls like you."
"What do you mean?"
Frankie was spared the explanation by Astarte breezing in, twenty minutes before opening, like always. She wore skin tight white shorts that showed the lines of penis and scrotum clearly, and a spangled halter top displaying cleavage that Madonna would die for. She was six feet four in bare feet, six feet seven in heels. "Evening, Frankie."
He returned her greeting with an off-handed wave. The girl was staring at Astarte in a way that was frankly curious and appreciative.
Astarte stopped and put her huge handbag on the bar. "Keeping pets, Frankie?"
"She's lost," Frankie said. "I think her boyfriend's played a joke."
"I don't think so," Astarte said, coming closer. Her eyes narrowed. "I think she meant to be here." Her long silver fingernails clicked as she reached down to cup the girl's chin.
The girl flowed upwards with a sudden graceful movement, ponytail, shorts and shirt melting into a long expanse of blue skin and scales. Yellow eyes regarded Astarte's wrist, gripped tightly in a blue hand. "I did mean to be here. Problems, anyone?"
Astarte laughed. "Oh, you're precious! Where did you come from?"
"I'm from the Brotherhood in Boston. And you?"
Astarte smiled. "Le Cirque, New Orleans. So is Robert; he's upstairs. I'm Astarte."
"Mystique."
Leaving Frankie to watch the door, she led Mystique up the back stairs. They were very narrow and turned twice, new when Andrew Jackson was in the White House. Upstairs, the French windows were shut and the cool dry air conditioning was very welcome.
Mystique supposed this room was rented out for parties – a long table by the wall, heavy mauve curtains, a bar at one end, a pair of restaurant tables pushed together and set with a water service. Framed sepia photos covered the walls.
An elderly man in a straw hat and Hawaiian shirt was looking at them, his hands clasped behind his back. Mystique came to stand beside him. In the photo, a group of young men dressed as swans rode on a float made out of what appeared to be a 1930's truck. They were laughing and throwing beads.
"Crewe of Narcissus, 1939," he said. "Before the police raid. Most of them were arrested. When they tried to run, the police set dogs on them. You can read the story in the Times-Picayune. When it came out in print two of them committed suicide." He touched the glass over the picture with one hand. "How is Magneto?"
"He's fine," she said.
Ice tinkled as Astarte poured half a glass of water, then went over to the bar.
"I'm surprised he didn't come himself," Robert said.
"He had to work."
"He must think quite a lot of you to send you instead."
"He does."
Robert turned around, taking in the expanse of naked skin and blue scales. "You're extraordinary. So is Astarte. A true hermaphrodite, and a top-rank telepath."
"Flatterer," Astarte said from behind the bar. She was adding bourbon to her glass. "He thinks if he says enough nice things about me I'll decide this meeting isn't a waste of time."
Mystique raised an eyebrow.
"The only way we're going to get anywhere is to pull together," Robert said. "We have to stop clinging to little groups of friends, find each other, and work together."
"Oh, that'll be easy," said Astarte sarcastically. "The day that mutants who can pass want to sit down with the ones who can't, I'll give you a blow job."
Robert didn't react. "We can't afford to be divided. That's what makes it possible for people to use us."
The door opened and Frankie ushered in two more men, a young dark haired man with glasses and an athletic build, and a fortyish man in a plaid cotton shirt. "Beast," he said, "and Freedom Amnesty Justice."
"That's a lot of baggage for one guy," Astarte said.
The man in the plaid shirt straightened up. "Aspirations," he said. "Unlike our animal friend here, I seek to overcome our baser nature and move forward in an evolutionary sense. We must feel the promise written on our genes."
The younger man shrugged. If that was bait, he didn't rise to it.
"You are both very welcome," Robert said.
Gradually, they began to take their places at the table. There was a hawk-faced woman in her 40's from North Carolina who said very little, and a pretty Polish boy named Shane barely into his twenties from Detroit. He was a clairvoyant and a police officer. The woman from North Carolina was an attorney.
Robert led the meeting and Astarte took notes. And that was all people agreed on.
"I'm just saying," Shane said, "that we've had a lot of success in Detroit just being above-board. My fellow officers know what I can do, and they respect my abilities. They know I'm a responsible citizen."
"Sometimes that doesn't matter," Robert said.
Hank shifted in his chair. "It's not that easy for some of us. For people who scare others just going about their business."
"I don't see," Freedom Amnesty Justice said, "why we have to be so visible."
Astarte snorted. "Try blending in when you look like me."
"I don't see that you try," he said, looking at her spangled bustier.
"I don't see why I should have to," Astarte snapped. "I have as much right as anybody."
Hank shifted in his chair. "The problem is that we don't. I came here because some of my friends can't. They can't even travel on a plane because of their obvious mutations."
Mystique smiled. She knew who Hank was, but he had no idea who she was. "Red quartz glasses," she said, "and wing braces are fairly obvious in airport security."
Hank started.
She smiled again. "So how are Scott and Warren?"
"Fine," he said. It obviously disturbed him.
"It's all politics," the woman from North Carolina said. "It's just a matter of access. If we had political clout we could…."
"Do what?" Freedom Amnesty Justice interrupted. "Have our civil rights? Has that worked for blacks? Has getting a few people elected to office ended racism? I don't think so. We have to embrace the fact that we're not human, we're homo superior. We are the Aquarian race. Why should we buy into their human institutions and human aspirations? Extinction is their destiny, like the Neanderthals."
"We are human," Shane said. "We just have some differences, some special abilities. A different race, maybe, but not a different species."
"That cannot be proven," Robert said. "We lack sufficient medical evidence one way or the other. Unless," he looked at Hank, "our young friend has some cutting edge research he'd like to share."
"By all means," Freedom Amnesty Justice said, "let's hear from the great Charles Xavier's proxy."
Hank shifted in his seat. "There is no definitive research I am aware of," he said. "And I want to make it clear that I'm not here representing Xavier. He doesn't know I'm here, and wouldn't think much of it if he knew."
Mystique filed that piece of information. Erik would be interested.
The attorney from North Carolina cleared her throat. "It's obvious that some of our mutations are improvements on homo sapiens. And some aren't. That's the nature of mutation. To try different combinations. Some of them work, some don't. We have to face the fact that some of us are genetic dead ends."
Mystique couldn't hear any of the comments clearly -- everyone was shouting at once. She got up and got a glass of cold water from behind the bar. Robert was the only one who looked up. His expression was pained.
Mystique shrugged.
Robert got up and came over. Behind him, Shane and Astarte were yelling at each other. "You don't have much to say," he observed.
"I'm not here to talk," she said.
Robert's expression was grudging admiration. "You're more politically astute than Magneto. He would be shouting by now."
"And that's so productive," she said.
By nine o'clock it was obvious that no consensus was possible. By eleven the woman from North Carolina and Freedom Amnesty Justice had walked out. By midnight she had turned her attention to seducing Shane, or at least getting him in a private conversation.
Standing out in front of Valentine's as the meeting broke up, she looked like a college girl again, talking with a handsome, hunky police officer when they heard the first scream.
They stopped in mid sentence. "Astarte," he said, and began to run as they heard her scream again.
She had left a few minutes before. Now she lay on the ground, blood staining her sequined bustier and pumping onto the cobblestones of the French Quarter. Two men bent over her, one holding her by her long blond hair.
The other raised the knife again. "Bitch," he said. "Freak."
"Get your hands up!" Shane yelled. "Police!"
He was unarmed, but he had the voice. The man with the knife hesitated. Hank was pounding up behind Shane. Hank was a med student, but he was built like a bodybuilder.
Astarte's eyes rolled up. Her car keys were gripped in her hand. They dropped onto the pavement.
"Let's go, man." They turned and ran.
"Call 911," Hank snapped, already sinking to his knees beside Astarte.
The keys lay in her blood on the stones. Mystique snatched them up. A long single key, probably from an import. She shifted shape even as Shane ran for a phone and disappeared after them.
Now she was the hunter. The alley was quiet, but she could hear them ahead, stumbling over boxes left out for recycling. She was faster than they were, and blue is invisible in the dark.
She should be frightened, some part of the back of her mind whispered. Two men had probably just killed a mutant woman. What did she think she was doing, stalking them in the dark?
She saw movement at the end of the alley, faded into a shadow. They were arguing in a whisper. They split up. In the distance she could hear the first sirens.
Mystique followed the one left. Old buildings. Metal fire escapes. She flowed up the ladder like water, across the porch veiled in jasmine that crushed under her fingers. The smell of jasmine, and the blood on the keys.
She dropped down behind him, and when he turned drove Astarte's car key into his eye. She left the keys there, beneath his clutching hand as he screamed and held his face in the dark, staggering in agony.
Six blocks away she caught the other one. He saw her. He had the knife, so he smiled. "Mutant bitch," he said. "I'm going to cut you. I'm going to ram this in your cunt."
She kicked him in the side of the head, in the gut, and again in the side, listening to the crunch of a rib. The knife dropped from his hand, and she hauled him up by the shirt.
Her voice was shaking. She didn't know why. "Piss yourself," she said. "Piss yourself and I may let you live."
He did. She dropped him in disgust. "Coward," she said. "Get out of the gene pool."
The sirens were closer. She heard Hank's voice.
Mystique straightened. With a parting kick she disappeared into the shadows.
Twelve blocks away a thirtyish brunette in a black dress flagged down a cab.
The driver lectured her as they drove past the ambulances in the narrow street. "You oughtn't walk alone, a woman and all. It's dangerous."
The EMTs were lifting a shrouded stretcher into the back of the ambulance. Hank was sitting on the curb, blood soaking his shirt, with Shane beside him. Hank put his face in his hands. Shane was saying something. They did not look up at the taxi.
The brunette looked shaken. "I'll be careful," she said.
The End