Hotel California: Wrath

[x-legion.livejournal.com]

And Jean.

WARNING: Violence, abuse of a child.



To access the hallway Jean had to slip past an "Employees Only" sign. The area was meant for the manager and his staff to live and work in and appeared to have been used that way for some time. The hallway still had its original opulence, with wood paneled crown molding and wallpaper, though the years had left their mark, making the wallpaper faded and curled up in places. As the guests never had to see this area the caretaker had not put as much effort maintaining it as he had the rest of the hotel.

Jean could not get Brook, the old man she had met, out of her mind. There was something off about him, something that she could not place. She wanted to talk to him a little more about some of the things he'd said. Some might have passed it off as crazy talk but she had some experience with crazy and there were parts that didn't just seem to come from a few screws being loose. It was the things he knew.

When she felt the disturbance after getting back to the hotel: a headache, coupled with a severe feeling of unease that seemed to be felt by not just her but the other guests in the lobby she had been reading in, she had decided to call the mansion. Brook had been the only one she had been able to pinpoint at that moment that could've been a likely candidate. He didn't seem to have malintent but an unstable psyche gave no real assurances as to giving control over his own actions. It would've taken awhile for someone from the mansion to arrive, however, and she was already there. She wanted to watch him just in case it happened again with potentially worse consequences. If it was even him. Sometimes a judgment call needed to be made.

As she entered the hallway, Jean got an overwhelming sense of deja vu. It felt like she had done this before but she didn't know why. Unconsciously, she found herself pulling out her cell phone. Scott. I need to call Scott. He can help.

But the moment she thought of it she began to wonder what she needed help from. Something was wrong. Taking a breath, Jean glanced down at her phone. As she caught a glimpse of the call log she stiffened, shaking her head when she found two missed calls to Scott already. The time stamp, which read 00:00, didn't seem possible. Her hands felt numb, and as she took a step backward from surprise she began to sway, feeling a sense of overwhelming exhaustion and hunger. Her body ached. The phone slipped from her hand, falling to the ground as her knees gave way, sending her collapsing right down after it. She brought out her hands to catch herself and closed her eyes.

Then the screaming began.

A child's scream wasn't necessarily a matter for alarm; her own niece and nephew had enjoyed a phase where ninety percent of their play seemed to involve shrieks, and fate decreed that no vacation would be complete without overhearing at least one tantrum. This scream was different.

It was terror.

Jean lifted her head toward the sound as the realization her telepathy was suddenly not working also set in. It felt like the world was muted. Ignoring her growing apprehension, she dragged herself to her feet, grabbing her phone, and staggered out of the hallway. Her entire body felt like it weighed two times more than it did. As she entered the lobby she saw three people's backs blocking her view. Her height gave her some advantage in that she could see a small crowd ahead of them, all surrounded around something. Someone.

"Excuse me...." Jean said, gently, but quickly nudging people out of the way.

"I'm a doctor."

"Dr. Grey!" One of the onlookers was the manager, who clearly remembered her. The tone wasn't quite relief, but it was close.

"He just collapsed . . ."

"Everyone please back away...I need some room," Jean said, crouching down beside the man. It took her a moment to recognize his face, and when she did she almost did a double take. It was the father of the little girl who she had run into earlier.

Pushing up her sleeves, she took a look her watch, then reached down to check his pulse.

Behind her the manager was demanding silence and ordering someone to call 911. Unfortunately, it took only a few seconds to determine he was beyond the help of paramedics. The man had no perceptible pulse; his left pupil was blown. Blood oozed from his nose, ears and mouth.

And beside him his daughter, Laurel, sobbed.

A soft breath left Jean's lips and she stared at him for a moment or two before her hand slipped away and she slowly rose to her feet.

She still wobbled a bit, the weakness lingered, but there were more important things.

Approaching the manager, she leaned in. "Can I speak to you privately?" she said, then glanced back to the little girl.

"Sweetheart, I want you to stay with the desk clerk, okay?" she added with a regular voice.

"No!" Laurel shoved away the clerk's hands as he tried to help her up. She balled her fists and kept rocking over the corpse of her father, sobbing. "No no no no . . ."

An older woman Jean had seen before, possibly the wife of the manager, managed to get the girl to her feet. She and the desk clerk escorted the child to the other side of the lobby.

More people were trickling in from the dining area and upstairs, drawn by the commotion. It wasn't just lodgers; the staff were equally curious. The manager gave two members of the housekeeping staff terse directions to keep everyone back and ensure the paramedics were on their way before he followed Jean.

"What happened?" was his first question as they rounded the corner. "Was that a stroke?"

"Possibly. It looks to be a cerebral hemorrhage. He's dead," Jean said softly. "We can wait until the paramedics arrive to confirm it...I don't have the proper equipment with me but..." she said, glancing around.

"But...there seems to be something...in this hotel. Something wrong."

She wasn't quite sure how to approach things with the man when she didn't know what was fully going on. "Is your uncle around?"

The manager gave her a look of confusion. "Brook? Yes, somewhere. What do you mean 'something in this hotel'? A health hazard?"

Jean smiled inwardly. It was a good suggestion, if she did say so herself.

"Possibly," she said with a simple nod. "I don't know yet. But it's probably best to get people out if we can." Garrison could likely get SHIELD to make something up if it was nothing. She had a feeling. A very bad feeling.

"Including your uncle. He seemed...ill earlier. I'd like to examine him if you don't mind. Away from the public. Do you mind telling me where he is?"

"Sure, fine. Uh -- try the garden." Between the dead man in the lobby and a possible health-hazard on the premises the manager was clearly not in the mood to go into details. He slicked back his hair and put on his best professional face as he turned to milling crowd.

"Attention, everyone. I apologize for the inconvenience, but as a safety precaution we need to clear the premises . . ."

Wishing she had brought her uniform, Jean took in a breath and headed that direction. She hadn't even been in the right place in the first place (even if something told her that that wasn't quite right).

She stopped at the set of glass doors, peering in to see if she could see Brook in the garden.

"Jean? What on earth is going on?"

While Jean had been intent on finding the potential cause of the disruption she had failed to notice the appearance of Lee Kirby. The small man was too professional to show much alarm at what was apparently a natural, if sudden, death, but he had known her long enough to interpret her body language for what it was. Without her telepathy the man had almost sneaked up on her. Jean spun around, blinking.

"Lee--" she said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, there's...something going on. I can't really explain right now....But I need to take care of something first. I can meet you back at your place later. I'll call you."

"All right." Kirby gave her a worried look. "It was nothing urgent. Terri just sent me to-"

There was a pounding from the lobby, followed by an agitated babble. An instant later the manager was sprinting towards them much faster than his bulk would have led anyone to believe.

"Dr. Grey, the front door isn't opening."

Tilting her head, Jean paused, frowning. Wonderful.

"If there are other exits try them. Remain calm about it. If we get everyone too excited we could cause a panic and we don't want that," she said, reaching for the door handle that led out into the garden. Perhaps there was a way to get everyone out that way. Of course, Brook was possibly still out there but if he was behind this perhaps she could convince him to let them all go. This also meant that the X-Men probably weren't getting in either. "Lee, can you please keep watch out for me in the lobby?"

For a moment it looked as if Kirby was going to say something. While he hadn't been a practicing physician in many years, he still worked with cadavers; death he could deal with. This was something else. Something neither his medical training nor his academic background had prepared him for.

Then he seemed to decide that whatever misgivings he might have had, now was not the time to voice them. The small man drew himself up to his full height and gave his former student a nod.

"All right. Whatever I can do."

"Thanks," Jean said. Taking a breath, she tried to open the door...but found it locked. Clenching her jaw, she pounded on the door with her fist a couple of times. Then, when that didn't work, she made sure there was no one else around before giving the door a telekinetic shove that resulted in...nothing. "What?" she muttered to herself in frustration, aiming a telekinetic burst at the window pane beside the door handle. The glass didn't even break.

"Come on..." she growled, peering out the door again further into the garden. Upon further inspection she could see no one was out there but that didn't help matters much anyway if the others couldn't get out.

Then screams from the lobby began again.

Jean moved fast, but Kirby was closer. She arrived to find him already beside the victim: one of the housekeeping staff, a young woman. He'd pressed his fingers to her neck to search for a pulse as the manager bellowed for calm. It wasn't working.

"She collapsed," Kirby said as Jean came up behind him. "Same hemorrhaging as the other." Withdrawing his hand, Kirby turned to look at Jean with hard eyes. "I saw her collapse. She wasn't showing any signs of distress. No weaving, no muscle or speech disturbance. Nothing. What is going on?"

Jean crouched down, glancing around. "I don't know," she admitted finally as she checked the woman's vitals herself, frowning in confirmation.

"But I'm going to find out."

She rose. "I need everyone to move into the dining area," she said firmly, no room for questions. Gawking at the two dead people was going to do more harm than good.

"Stay calm," the manager implored, though it was obvious he was having trouble following his own advice. One death was unnerving. Another casualty within five minutes, this one an employee, was terrifying.

The remaining housekeeper was sobbing with fear, and the clerk who'd been placed in charge of Laurel looked like he was about to throw up. Of the remaining staff only the manager's wife seemed to be able to pull herself together.

"Through here, please," the woman directed. Her voice had a slight tremor, but she strode briskly to the dining room. She paused at the doorway to direct the lodgers through, then did a double-take at what she saw inside.

"Brook! There you a--"

She never finished the sentence. Her head bucked back with such force it threw her into the door frame. There was a dull crack of bone against wood, and the woman slid to the floor. This time there was no chance for the bystanders to react; the handful of lodgers in her wake collapsed like unstrung puppets before her body had even hit the ground.

"You'll excuse me," Brook said as the elderly man emerged from the dining room, "but it was getting crowded."

Jean gasped. "No!" she screamed, covering her mouth with her hand.

Despite her profession of being the one who warded off death there were still times when death won the battle. She had seen it far too many times. And it hit her hard every time.

She reflexively rushed the closest person to check their pulse, though she knew she would find nothing. Their bodies lay strewn about like a child's discarded toys.

Her gaze trailed up to Brook as she slowly rose, her expression suddenly hard. The theory of him being an old man who had no control over his abilities seemed to have evaporated. She had suspected there was more to it but she should've trusted her instincts.

"Why?"

"Come on, Jean." His voice was no longer hoarse and reedy; it couldn't be called commanding, but it was familiar. The man took a casual step over the manager's wife to bring himself closer. "Your telepathy isn't working, but you should be able to guess. After all, we do know each other . . ." he raked his eyes up and down her body in a mingling of lust and hate, "intimately."

Jean felt her stomach drop and her body stiffen, her muscles coiling. She clenched her fists.

"Matthews," she snarled. Her fingers uncurled as her hand flew up and she tried to telekinetically lift him off his feet but nothing happened.

"How did you..?" There were so many ways to end that question: How was he doing that? How did he know she was there?

"You've been spoiled by your power. Look at your last great triumph over me: you, Ms. X-Man, Ms. Xavier's-first-student, versus a coma patient. I had the odds of a bug against a windshield. But today . . ." the man inside Brook gave her a rictus grin, "today, I took your car keys."

He turned abruptly and waved a hand. "Excuse me again."

Across the room the manager and housekeeper let out a gurgling noise and began to convulse. Laurel shrieked as the clerk shielding her started to spasm and hit the ground; Kirby pulled her away and spun her into his chest, shielding the girl from the death throes.

This time it took them a while to die.

Oh God. "No! Stop. STOP!" Jean screamed, her face blanching white with shock and horror.

"Son of bitch!" she said as the horror turned to rage. She charged toward Brook, aiming a hard punch to the man's face but finding it hurt her own hand more than his head. Crying out in pain, she clutched her hand as she felt something crack.

The man tutted as she cringed away. "First a coma patient, now you've assaulted an octogenarian. If he hadn't been a mutant you would have broken this poor man's jaw. A hip too, I imagine." He paced around Jean to regard the two survivors. "You are Professor Kirby, aren't you? I'm sure you taught her better than that."

"Jean, who is this?" quavered Kirby. He still clutched Laurel protectively to his chest, though he had to know the gesture was hollow.

"The man your Dr. Grey left in a vegetative state. The first time, that is. The second time she put me in an infinite loop of pain." Matthews arched an eyebrow. "Oh, you look surprised. It looks like Jean's been a little less than truthful in her alumni updates."

"You murdered OVER A DOZEN PEOPLE! You manipulated me like a puppet and nearly killed almost everyone I love. You're psychotic," Jean growled.

"Let them go and we can finish this ourselves. It's always been us."

Brook's arm shot out. A hand seized Jean's throat in a vise-like grip.

"Dr. Kirby," said Matthews in a tone too conversational for a man holding a woman at arms' length, "what do you imagine I did to provoke Jean here? Terrorism or murder, I'm guessing. But no, when we first met I was just a lobbyist. Not for a particularly wholesome organization, I'll admit, but this is DC." His eyes narrowed on Jean. "'This has always been us?' Funny coming from the woman who upped the ante. Mr. Kirby, please stand."

The professor gasped; he was rising, and from the look on his face it was involuntary. Laurel yelped at the motion and scrambled back, her face a masque of confusion and fear.

"No..!" Jean reflexively clawed at her throat. She attempted to kick Brook in the shin to try to loosen his grip hoping for a different result than last time but it only resulted in the force of the kick being reflected back on her and she let out a gurgled cry of pain. Her eyes flickered desperately toward Laurel.

"R...Run."

"She can't," Matthews said. "None of you can. It's a terrible thing, being caught up in something you don't understand against someone you have no chance at fighting. Fortunately, the three of you won't have to experience it alone."

Matthews spun Jean to face her former professor. He twisted and held her wrists behind her back with bone-aching pressure, forcing her into position.

"Mr. Kirby, break that child's fingers."

There was no hesitation. The professor grabbed the girl's wrist with one hand, gripped two of her fingers with the other, and yanked back hard.

Laurel screamed. So did Kirby.

Jean's eyes widened, what breath she had catching in her throat as she renewed her efforts to struggle with everything she had. "Parker...stop...this! Please!"

"No, I don't think I will." She could feel his hot, foul breath on the back of her neck. The words rolled out of his mouth as if he savored them.

"But you're welcome to share the experience."