"Uhhhh. . .sir?"

"Yesssssss?" he appeared, his expression one of anticipation.

"They seem to be. . .ahem, that is. . . .they're about to have sex, Sir."

His face fell a bit. "Oh. How. . . ordinary. Well, I suppose we'll have to try something different. In a moment, flip the switch again and take him out. We shall see how being suddenly deprived of her lover affects her. Bring the boy to me. I want to question him."

"In a moment. . .?" the tech repeated, asking for specifics.

"Just long enough for them to. . .finish."

The tech opened his mouth again, but was cut off by the demonic voice that filled their minds with its insidious melody.

"Nathaniel Essex! How dare you!" A guttural scream filled the room. Light disappeared, and from the darkness came the demon. It was a woman, with dark, exotic eyes and tanned skin that hinted at a black heritage. Her teeth were very white, and the pointed tips were red with blood. "How dare you threaten what is mine! For this you will pay!"

One eyebrow rose.

She sent him to his knees with the piercing scream that was purified by the pain of a thousand dead souls. This pure, perfect sound tore into his brain and sent him to his knees. "That is for your insolence! And you shall pay for this blasphemous affront with your very life!"

She pointed one long, elegant finger at him. "Straight to Hell, I banish thee, destroyed by the Power of Three!"

Celeste's eyes snapped open as Remy's hands roamed over her hips. "The Power of Three," she hissed. Gambit was oblivious to the new presence, and continued running flexible hands up and down her body. All the while, her mind screamed at her. The Power of Three, Guided by Me. The Power of Three, Guided by Me. . . .

"The Power of Three, Guided by Me. . ." The demon woman screamed.

"Guided by *Me*, " There was another one, a second demon come to stand against him. She was lithe and small, with eyes as green as the Elysium Fields and hair blacker than Satan's heart.

Celeste cried out again and clutched Gambit, silently willing him to prepare himself. Her world was growing dim and her head was light as she finished what Marie had started. ONE. . . .

"Two!" the smaller of the demons bellowed.

"THREE!" screamed the first demon. The door to oblivion swung open before Nathaniel, and he was helpless to stop himself from falling. . . .

Celeste wrapped her legs around Gambit, their lips still locked in a slick embrace. She silently wondered what she was doing like this. His arms thrust themselves beneath her back, supporting her as her head tipped back over his arm. She sighed contentedly, his name on her lips.

The room flickered, and pale light spilled into the room from some unnamed source. It spread a golden pool of ambience on the floor that just touched their bodies, leaving them half in the shadows.

"Well, well, well," Marie tsked as she stood over them, hands on her hips, "You are definitely your mother's daughter." She spoke without rancor, blithely taking in Celeste's half-exposed body and the man lying on top of it. "For de love of God, Remy, zip dose jeans. Dere *are* ladies present. Contrary to popular belief," she added with a pointed look in Rea's direction, she having come from the darkness to stare at the indecent scene displayed on the floor.

Gambit's mind cleared, and he glanced up at the Voodoo Queen, wondering if she were about to put a curse on him for trying to defile her niece. He rose to his feet and helped Celeste to hers.

"C'mere, chere. We gotta get dat t'ing out o' your neck befo' you start losin' y'mind." Celeste nooded, and allowed Marie to dig the psi-dampener from the muscle of Callie's neck. Gambit flinched as she gritted her teeth and whimpered under the fiery sting of the blade.

It was done soon enough, and they left the wreckage of Sinister's underground lair without saying much else. There was nothing left to say.

Back at the mansion, the duo appeared from the mists beside the lake, and Celeste pulled on her clothes hurriedly, tossing the t-shirt in Gambit's direction. It was an unspoken agreement that the matter of Celeste's near-infidelity would be dismissed as temporary insanity.

It was only a coincidence that Gambit felt less than sane at the moment.

Celeste's body, after having survived several hours underwater, too many minutes on Sinister's operating table, and an eternity in the darkness with Gambit, felt like it belonged to someone else. Her leg muscles were like jelly, and she stumbled around a little, feeling like an idiot. Gambit caught her around the waist and helped her into the mansion.

"What're we going to do now, Rem? I'm too keyed to go back to sleep."

"You could always wake Logan up and ask him to do dat t'ing to you."

"What 'thing'?"

"Whatever made you squeak like a chipmunk dis afternoon."

Celeste's expression was blank with shock. Then, she shook with laughter and let Gambit pull her into the study. "I wonder what Logan would have to say about th-- Oh, hi, Logan!" She waved cheerily over Remy's shoulder at Logan, who was sitting across from Storm, who was muffling a laugh, on a couch in front of the fireplace.

Remy spun around, taking a woozy Celeste with him, still attached to his waist. "Bon soir, mon ami," He said after a small pause.

"Whoa," she hiccuped, putting most of her weight on Gambit when she felt her feet beginning to slide out from her. The kids must be messing with my system, she thought, I should be recovering faster than this. "On second thought, I think I'd better go to bed. 'Night, luv." She blew a kiss to Logan and spun on her heel before her expression could give her away. Logan Jr.'s claws were out, and he was at it again.

She recovered herself, smiled serenely, hiccuped, and nodded to Gambit and Stormy before drifting back down the hall towards her bedroom. She could hear Gambit explaining their ordeal before she even got to the second floor.

She had a smile on her face as she fell into bed. So many secrets, so little time to keep them.

When Celeste woke up, the clock on the nightstand told her it was 3 A.M. They must have let me sleep all day, she thought. Without rolling over, she knew Logan was beside her. Heat radiated from his side of the bed. She sighed. Callie was still no closer to finding the answers than she had been two days ago. She would have to make mental contact with her friends down South. If she still had any, that is.

"Ah, hell," she muttered aloud. So much to do, so little time to do it in. She threw the covers back and started to get up.

A hand clamped around her wrist and Celeste shrieked, in spite of herself. She turned around and snapped, "Jesus, Logan. I coulda taken your head off!"

"Before or after ya stopped screamin'?"

"After, damn it all! What'd'ya want?"

"Ta know where ya think you're goin', darlin'."

"I'm going to. . .the kitchen, and I'm going to take a walk, after that. I seem to have slept all day. No thanks to *you*." She snatched her hand back and glared at him.

"I thought it was best for you, seein' as how you almost got aced by Sinister." He looked up at her then, and his eyes were troubled.

She heaved an inward sigh and flopped back down on the bed. She really didn't have time to deal with an insecure husband. She folded her legs under her and leaned against his chest, saying, "What is it, Logan?"

"Nothin'."

"And I'm the Queen of Sheeba."

"Wouldn't surprize me a'tall, girl."

"Answer the question."

He fidgeted for a moment, finally looking at her and her eyes, which changed to match her mood. Right now, they were turquoise, which happened when she was troubled. "It's just that, it seems like ev'ry time I turnaround, you're not there. And tonight I finally catch you leavin'. It just worries me, that's all. I feel like yer shuttin' me out."

I am. "I'm not shutting you out, Logan, I just like to be by myself sometimes. I get a wild craving for it, in fact." She was saying it on purpose, knowing he'd understand.

"Yeah, I can understand that." Bingo. "But I just wish you'd let me in sometimes."

"I will, Logan, I swear it." Just not *now*. Not yet."

"Then can I come with you?"

"No, Logan," she could tell she'd hurt him. His eyes were windows to his soul. "Soon, though. I just need to think."

He nodded, and she slipped on clothing and out into the dark hallways without another word. Logan waited a few tense minutes before he reached a decision with himself. "It's not that I don't trust ya, darlin'," he murmured, "But if ya won't let me in, then I'm breakin' in."

Celeste walked into the kitchen, running her hand along the back wall, searching for the telephone. Ever since she'd turned up pregnant, her night vision, along with a lot of other things, had been reduced to nil. Absently rubbing her stomach, she ran her tongue around her mouth, trying to get rid of the dryness. She opened her mind hesitantly. The last time she'd gone full-out, she'd ended up in a coma and awakened to find everybody captured. First, she slammed the Gateway closed. The disaster with Maielle had proved quite definitely that leaving trails for the bad guys to follow wasn't good, especially when it led straight back to the mansion. Not only that, but she didn't want her father to hunt her down when he heard the news. He, along with Rea, had taken up residence at the Palace. Minutes ticked past as Celeste opened her mind to the delinquents of New Orleans and the surrounding territory. They were always the first to know if something was going down.

"Hey, chere. Wake up, mon chou."

Ah, yes. Another pet name. Celeste opened her eyes. Tante Mattie hung in the air, as transparent and fragile as a soap bubble. "Hey, Mattie. Where y'at?"

"I s'pect you lookin' fo' de boy, hein?" Mattie rarely wasted time.

"What else? What do you know?"

"I know dat you 'bout to get in over your head, Callie."

"Aren't I always?" Celeste smiled bitterly.

"Yeh, but you know as well as anyone else dat Bella's not someone to mess wit'." With that, Mattie disappeared from the room, fading like a bittersweet memory. At that moment, Callie couldn't say whether or not she had dreamed the whole thing. Her skin was cold to the touch, but her insides burned with liquid heat.

Celeste ran shaking fingers through her hair and slid down the wall. She sat there for a long while, curled into a miserable little ball. Her eyes slipped closed as she plunged back into the past, reluctantly. Bad things seemed to happen when she did that. . .

. . .When she'd first come to the Big Easy, she had decided to experiment a little with herself, to see if she could make it in the world without using her powers. For almost a year, she hadn't done so much as change her hair color with magic. She'd hung out with Henri LeBeau during the day, and gone thieving with him at night, after getting that hallowed invitation into the Guild. She had been sitting in Napoleon's Bar, a hotspot in the French Quarter, the day she had received the letter. It had been a wedding invitation, all the way from Japan. Celeste had sat in the corner, her usual table, and gotten stupid drunk. She had sat in that bar and gave herself a good talking-to, telling herself to let Logan go and let him be happy with Mariko. She'd just about done it, when who should walk in the door but Remy LeBeau. He had nodded to her, the (then) redhead who followed his brother around, and went on talking with the people he knew. Her bruised pride demanded his surrender. She watched him, following his hands as they moved, his lips as they formed words. After a while, he began to return her scrutiny, watching her as she shifted suggestively, putting on a show for him, played with the letter on the table, licked her lips, ran her finger around the rim of her glass, and, finally, looked up at him and winked.

It was the wink that did it. She had stood up from the table and walked across the room with a sexy stride that should have scorched the carpet. He had followed, of course, practically licking his lips. They'd loved each other until dawn, and she had left him all spindly and wrung-out like a gas station dog. But she hadn't left alone.

It was several decades' worth of vows never to have any bastard children, shot to hell in one instant.

The kid had been born with his father's face and plenty of his skill, too. A week after he was born, Jean-Luc Henri LeBeau, whose name who later change to LaBelle in a feeble attempt to hide his parentage, was already talking, walking, and stealing anything that wasn't nailed down. At two weeks, he was gambling with other kids in the alternate reality his mother had escaped to. At a month, it was clear that the kid was a mutant. He had the odd and unbelievable ability to influence someone's thoughts, words, and actions by the merest flicker of his eyelashes. He absorbed memories and emotions by touching any physical thing. He was also possessed of an odd aging factor that sped up the normal aging ability. Someone, Marie, probably, had told her that his aging would stop when he reached his physical peak, around twenty-five. Like his mother's, his eyes changed color in tune with his emotions, but they were usually red-on-black, just like you-know-whose.

Celeste's eyes snapped open, and she found herself back in the present. What if something had happened to him? What if someone had figured out who his parents were? What if they were after his money? What if he had developed the ability to skip through realities and gotten lost, or trapped in one of them? What if, what if?

She hook her head sharply. There was no point in playing that game. Her muscles stiffened as she tried to get up, but they trembled and gave out on her. She collapsed back on the floor and her head fell back into her hands. What now? And then she felt it. When Mattie had appeared, it had fallen back, almost respectful of the other woman. But now, it surged up again, a sort of super-influenza, like the kind that attacked humans, but made stronger to stop *her* in her tracks.

Her teeth chattered as the chills seeped into her bones. The kids! The last few days had been rough on them. What with not getting enough sleep, getting tagged for one of Sinister's experiments, and dashing around mentally, looking for their half-brother, they were getting shafted in the care department. Celeste slid to the side, her head coming to lay against the floor as her thoughts raced faster than her immune system. The thing encroaching upon her was thick and unnatural. . .unnatural. Something unnatural, something that didn't find its base in one of the Elements. Celeste's vision blurred, and her eyes dropped closed as she struggled to keep thinking. something like Black Magic. There was one, one woman who could get through the barriers between realities, even with the doorway closed. Not black magic, voodoo. Voodoo, with enough power behind it to come from the most powerful priestess of them all. . . .Celeste's thought pattern shattered as the name echoed in her mind.