And All the Stars

Chapter Nineteen

"When I’m having an apocalypse, I always insist on six star accommodation." Noi waved a gloved hand languidly, and turned so the skirt of her dress coiled and swirled. She considered herself in the mirrored wall dominating one side of the store. "Maybe a little too Grande Dame?"

"Try the yellow one," Madeleine suggested.

"All I can think when I see that is Fire Hazard."

"Which makes it a good thing the cooking’s all but done. And, plus, aprons."

"There’s not going to be any winning of arguments with you today, is there?" Noi’s smile was indulgent, and she disappeared into the dressing room with the fringe-covered yellow dress just as Emily emerged in a ruffled satin gown. "No, Millie, absolutely not," she said, before tugging the curtain across.

Emily eyed herself in the mirror and evidently agreed, selecting a white dress from the store’s limited range of evening wear and retreating once again.

The day had already been full. Madeleine and Fisher had emerged in time to help decorate the small function room chosen for the night’s festivities, and only smiled at teasing looks and comments. After lunch there had been swimming, and then a group effort at preparing an evening feast, Pan insisting on joining in because: "What fun is there in sitting by myself while you’re all off together?"

With only a few things needing last-minute heating, they’d separated to clean up and take advantage of finally locating the security codes to the foyer’s selection of expensive stores. Party clothes.

"Pity there isn’t a shoe place," Noi said, emerging to eye herself doubtfully. The yellow dress, a tight-fitting sheath covered in tiers of gold-shot fringes, shimmered with every tiny movement, emphasising her curves. "But I can live with barefoot in sheer silk stockings."

Madeleine looked down at her legs, glimmering blue through the semi-transparent skirt of the icy flapper-style dress she’d fallen for on sight. "I’m not sure stockings work for me any more."

"Mm. You’ve got a point. Shall I take the time to point out that you’re suddenly no longer trying to hide every inch of your starry starry skin?"

"Would there be any way to stop you?" Madeleine asked, and wondered how Noi would react if Madeleine shared her discovery that breasts were like tickling: a concept not fully appreciated until someone else was involved.

Noi took a few dancing steps, watching the fringes at her hips shimmer, then plumped down beside Madeleine.

"Okay, less teasing, more congratulations. You think you’ll work out? Long term?"

"Maybe." Madeleine had to admit to wanting there to be a long term. "If the Moths give us the chance. I…I think I fell in love with him this morning."

"What, not till then? Not that I’m arguing against try before you buy, mind you, but it took him all the way till morning to impress you?"

"Before, I knew I really liked him. A lot. But this morning when he woke up I was drawing him, and he asked if it was okay to move. And then fetched me stuff, instead of expecting me to stop. Most people, when they meet me, it’s completely obvious to them that drawing is important to me. But Fisher, he treats my drawing as important. The way that makes me feel…"

"Are you looking for a boyfriend or a groupie?"

"I’m not sure I could really…belong with someone who treated my drawing the way my mother does – a nice little hobby, admirable enough, but always to be put aside in favour of everything someone else thinks is important." Madeleine sighed, then gave Noi a steady look. "And are you ever going to give Pan a chance?"

Noi lifted brows in exaggerated surprise. "What, you think I’m falling over for want of someone warm to hold? You don’t get trapped with a small group of people and have one of them just happen to be your one true love. Or–" She broke off, and gave Madeleine an apologetic grin. "Well, the odds are against it, and I think you’ve used all the good luck up. Pan’s just a nice kid."

"Noi."

A single word to add cherry tones to Noi’s warm brown skin. The shorter girl looked away.

"The way I am about him, it’s not me," she went on, the words low and rushed. "I’m usually the together, lightly-invested one. But, hell, all I want to do is throw myself at his feet and beg to be the Tink to his Peter. I want to do flighty, charming things which make him break out into speeches, and then I want to do…everything. He treats me like his Mum."

"No, like Wonder Woman, remember? He thinks you’re awesome."

Shoulders hunched, studying her toes, Noi shook her head. "It’s all because of the Spires, the disaster. I can’t trust the way I feel right now. I wouldn’t have looked at him twice, in the real world. Well, I’d have looked, but I sure as hell would never have wanted to find myself a green mini-dress and a pair of wings."

"Tinker Bell’s an inch tall. I don’t think she’d be much use for…everything. Wouldn’t you be better off being the Noi to his Lee? Pan can hardly be the right role for him today, not on his birthday. And he really admires you."

"That’s not helpful." Noi was recovering, and shook her head so her curls bounced. "Enough. The whole world doesn’t have to fall in love just because you have. This is the day for fun, not serious talk."

She climbed to her feet in time to inspect Emily, shyly emerging in a delicate white shift. Approving this enthusiastically, Noi bustled them off to see to hair, and regret the lack of makeup. They decided not to risk the jewellery shop, the contents of which were locked away behind an extra level of security.

"But in a way I like the whole mix of formal and underdressed," Noi said as she led the way to the menswear store, patting the upswept Grecian style into which she’d wrestled her curls. "It’s a bit like a beach wedding."

She took several dancing steps, fringes flaring as she spun: a lively girl of eighteen more than a little tired of running and hiding and being sensible. Nash, the only one of the four boys visible in the store, turned to look at her, smiled, and then bowed and held out a hand. Noi dipped in return, and they waltzed over marble: Nash tall and fine in a dark suit, black hair swept back, wearing black socks and no shoes; Noi vibrant and shimmering, barefoot.

"Man, Noi is totally in Goddess mode tonight." Pan had emerged, knotting a blue-black tie. "Told you Nash could dance."

Madeleine studied him carefully, but decided to shelve the question of what kind of admiration was bright in his eyes. "Enjoying your birthday?"

"Unbelievably. And I refuse to be guilty about it. Tonight we live!"

He grabbed her hands and, head tipped back in abandoned laughter, spun her into a child’s whirl across the marble, then fumbled for more formal movements. Fisher, in crisp shirtsleeves, offered Emily his hand, and stepped her carefully through the basic movements of the waltz until Min, with a James Bond air in a suit a little too long for him, dryly recommended they fool around somewhere other than in full sight of the glass entry doors.

Furnished with coats to protect their finery, they made a quick detour to the kitchen, heating and bringing down the last of the dishes to where most of the feast was already laid out in a small room off the dance floor on the Mezzanine level. Nash opened and poured champagne, which was Fisher’s suggestion to resolve Noi and Min’s positions on cutting loose during alien invasions. They would start their meal with a glass of champagne, close the evening with a single cocktail, and otherwise stick strictly to juice and soft drink. Fisher had volunteered to be designated driver, steering them away from any sudden impulses to play chicken with Moths.

The meal was despatched with Blue gusto, Madeleine sampling parmesan-dusted gnocchi, handmade personal pizza, and sweet potato frittata before sitting back with a sigh and deciding she was glad they’d planned a gap before any desserts.

"Gift-giving time?" Nash suggested.

"Wait, you guys went shopping?" Pan pretended amazement. "Or have the Moths started a home delivery service?"

"If you’d shut up for more than five seconds at a time you might find out," Min said, swiping casually at Pan’s head. Pan ducked, but they didn’t launch into their usual mock-fight since Emily was stepping up with the first present.

"This is from me and Min," she said, presenting a stuffed pillow case serving as wrapping paper.

"Thank you, Tink," Pan said, twinkling at her. "I’d say you shouldn’t have, but really, a daily shower of gifts would be most…" He paused as a mass of folded black cloth spilled out of the case. "Sheet set? Caftan?" His eyes widened as he held it up, then with a delighted grin he swept it around him, a black cloak with an ornate golden fastening, and leaped up to stand on his chair. He preened and posed until Nash threw a bread roll at him, then leaped down to hug Emily.

"Totally awesome, Tink. Where the hell did you find it?"

"It really is sheets. We made it. Min did most of the work."

"Really?" Pan held out a hand, and shook Min’s firmly. "Thanks, man. Appreciated."

The departure from teasing imp obviously startled Min, but he recovered and shrugged. "Something to do while sitting up on watch."

Madeleine, after careful questioning of Nash, had drawn Pan in a fictional rehearsal scene of Henry V, and offered it up to earn herself an appreciative hug.

"Someone’s been spilling all my ambitions," he said, with a muted grin in Nash’s direction. "You guys are too much."

Nash simply produced another pillowcase and watched with characteristic quiet enjoyment as Pan drew a slim stack of paper out and frowned down at lines of type fresh from the hotel’s office printer.

"This is…?" Pan flushed bright pink, turned pages and looked up at Nash in disbelief, his cocksure edge lost to wonder. "You wrote this?"

"With a great deal of input from Fisher. It’s only the first act, but something to go on with."

"The Blue Musketeers: A Play by Avinash Sharma."

Pan’s voice was reverent, and it was only with difficulty that he could be distracted from an immediate read-through. Nash had inserted a Moth invasion into the plot of Dumas' adventure, tailoring the role of D’Artagnan for Pan. He admitted that he couldn’t face writing anything set in the modern day.

During the chatter Noi disappeared and returned wheeling a sweet-laden trolley topped by a two-tier candlelit cake.

"I haven’t anything so impressive as a play," she said, "but it’s as chocolate as you asked for."

Noi was underselling herself: she’d worked on the cake in the Mezzanine floor kitchen, and produced a glossy triumph of confectionary. Pan immediately put down the script and gave the cake its due, declaring his need for an urgent injection of chocolate, bowing and flourishing his cloak as they sung to him, and lustily bellowing Happy Birthday to ME before blowing out the candles.

"Thimbles all round!" he cried, and gave Noi theatrical air-kisses on each cheek, then worked his way through everyone else. He was as much Puck as Pan that evening, a breath short of wild, repaying their gift of a birthday with indefatigable high spirits, insisting on charades after cake and, when those had collapsed into helpless laughter, coaxing them all onto the dance floor to attempt the Charleston. They began to wind down after that, and moved to the restaurant so Min could create drinks with names like Tom Collins, Mint Julep and El Presidente. Emily was given a Fuzzy Navel, which Min promised had barely enough peach schnapps to taste. Madeleine sampled each, an experiment which left her pleasantly detached as they conscientiously returned to clear away the remains of their meal.

"I’ll turn off the music," she said as the others pushed away laden serving trolleys, but a song she liked shuffled into play as she approached the control screen, so she turned it up instead, and revolved to slow, mournful words on the part-lit dance floor, watching for glimpses of her stars in mirrored sections of wall.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Holding out her hands to Fisher, she drew him close so they could turn together. "Yes. Though I think I’ll stick to the mostly fruit juice drinks in future. I don’t think I could shoot straight right now. Let alone avoid shield-paralysis."

Fisher smiled, though his eyes were grave and serious. "What about the third power? Do you think you could use that at the moment?"

A bubble of laughter escaped her. "Science Boy," she said, full of a boundless affection for him. Snuggled against his chest she made a valiant attempt, but it was like building a tower of mud. "Results of experiment: negative."

His arms tightened, then he tried himself, a fine thread of Fisher which made her gasp and stumble, so intense was the flood of warmth, desire, and tender concern. Underlying it were darker emotions: an ever-present note of anger and dread.

Letting the thread of connection die away, he kissed the side of her throat, voice a breathy sigh as he said: "I wish I could do more to protect you."

"I get to protect you, remember? Or try to. Super-strong."

When he didn’t say anything she drew back and saw his mood wasn’t one which was going to respond to spirit-fuelled quips.

"I know we’re slow-dancing in the eye of the storm," she told him. "I’ll remember my promise. But I’m…very happy right now Fisher."

His expression fractured, glad of her, yet somehow wounded. "I didn’t want to waste a moment of this day on gloom," he said huskily.

"Then don’t waste any more." She kissed him, and this time summoned fire, a response so strongly passionate she felt lucky he was holding her up.

"Maddie? Fish? You two still–? Ah." Pan stood in the doorway, trying not to look too highly entertained. "Sorry. Just came to say we’re heading up, and the centre elevator’s unlocked. Night."

"Lee."

Pan paused, offering Madeleine a look of polite enquiry which passed over the fact that Fisher had managed to unzip her dress and slide the straps over her shoulders to the point where it was necessary to use him as a screen.

"Noi likes you, you know."

A puzzled partial shrug in response.

"Really likes you."

His smile faded and he looked disbelieving. "You sure?"

"Very."

He blinked twice, then looked down and away, face completely blank. Lee Rickard, lost for words. Then the tiniest involuntary curling of the corners of his mouth, a smile trying to happen despite any attempt at control, twitching back whenever he tried to erase it. He looked up at them, eyes very wide, drew a deep breath, then let it out, and simply said: "Anyway, g’night," before leaving.

"Matchmaking?" Fisher asked.

"I wondered if perhaps it had simply never occurred to him that she would consider him."

"Because Lee Rickard is not, beneath it all, the eternally cocksure Pan?"

"Exactly. I hope it wasn’t a mistake. I’d hate to make this harder for either of them."

Out on the Mezzanine balcony a stage-trained voice lifted, strong enough to be clearly heard over the music. "Cock-a-DOOdle-doo!"

Fisher laughed. "Don’t worry too hard."

She smiled, and tightened her arms around him. "I’ve never really been part of a group. Not even before I had trouble at school. The teachers were always telling my parents I need to be taken out of myself. They thought I was hiding in my drawing."

"Too busy doing important things, no time for people. All very familiar." He stroked a loose curl away from her eyes. "I think I’m a good deal more like you than like Noi. And I’m enjoying all the complications of people far more than I could ever have expected. Tonight – tonight makes it easier to face tomorrow."

Madeleine couldn’t help but agree. Birthday parties, charades, and slow-dancing with someone whose eyes turned bright when he looked at her. Things which, like her painting, could give her the strength to run or to fight or to just keep going.

A climb to any height almost seems to invite calamity, and it was with a sense of the inevitable that Madeleine woke to oscillating song.

So close! She heaved out of the bed, an immediate, instinctive reaction, then stumbled in scant dawn light at the absence of Fisher. There was no time for guessing. Madeleine snatched at clothes, shoved feet into shoes. A glance showed the en suite was empty. Grabbing her bag, with only a fraction of thought spare to regret how little she’d kept packed, she bolted from the room.

"Maddie! Thank God."

Noi snatched Madeleine’s hand and reversed direction, pulling her into the next suite.

"I can’t find Fisher," Madeleine said, struggling to keep the words low, searching the thin shadows.

"He knows the plan."

Moth song again, sounding like it was right outside the door of the room, and Madeleine gulped and hoped a plan would be enough, racing with Noi through the series of interconnected suites. The others had already collected in the furthest, poised by the entry door.

"Did you and Fish leave the elevator unlocked?" Pan asked.

"No!" Madeleine was absolutely certain of that.

"Questions later." Noi pushed them toward the door. "Go."

The floors of the hotel tower were shaped like a segment of rainbow, with the suites all along the outside, accessed via a single corridor which bracketed the smaller inner curve containing the lifts and service areas. Fire escapes were located at either end, and the plan for escape was to run to the fire escape furthest from any intruding Moths and go down two levels to one of the lifts which had deliberately been parked away from their sleeping floor. Of course, it was a plan based on the assumption that the Moths would have to approach their floor by climbing and punching their way out of one of the fire escapes, that they would be guessing as to which floor the Musketeers were on, and would have tripped one of the alarms getting into the building in the first place. Instead of five steps ahead, the Musketeers were four behind, and all they could do was scramble.

They barrelled through the door into unfurling wings.

Momentum carrying her forward, crowded on all sides, Madeleine didn’t dare shield-punch, and dived left, trying to avoid the Moth while still heading in the direction of the fire escape. She lost her footing, found Emily on her knees beside her and grabbed her hand.

"Go! Don’t wait!" Noi urged, catching up Emily’s other hand as the boys hesitated a step down the corridor.

Madeleine staggered to her feet. Emily’s hand tightened in hers, and the girl let out a startled little sound. And stopped still. Nearly falling again, Madeleine stared back at Emily’s calm face, and tried to let go of a hand which suddenly held firm to hers.

"No." Noi, caught on Emily’s other side, pulled her hand free, but did not run. "Millie…"

"Noi." A mocking tone, accompanied by a thin smile which did not fit Emily’s young face. "Just wait there."

"For pity’s sake, look up!" Min grabbed Noi’s arm and swung her aside, then ducked himself, but not quick enough. A second Moth settled around his shoulders, and sank beneath his skin.

With a wordless, sobbing cry Noi snatched at Madeleine’s hand and pulled her free, and they ran with Nash and Pan as another ball of light drifted into view, and behind them two boys, one strawberry blonde and the other sandy-haired.

"Fish!"

At Pan’s exclamation Madeleine looked ahead. They’d rounded enough of the corridor’s curve to see the fire exit door, and Fisher waiting beside it, and the relief was so strong she stumbled, but then found the strength for a burst of speed, catching up with Nash as Fisher took a step or two in their direction.

Their speed undid them. The quiet determination of Fisher’s expression, the way he moved away from the fire exit instead of opening the door, stopping to rest a hand against the wall and lift the other, it was all clearly wrong, but they processed this too late to not run straight into the shield he raised.

Madeleine’s own shield reacted automatically, saving her from paralysis while bouncing her violently backward. She had barely wit enough to create a shield to protect her head from smashing into the ceiling, but this had the effect of slam-dunking her to the carpeted corridor floor.

Wind knocked out of her, sight hazed with wriggling grey, she lay stunned for vital seconds, struggling to breathe. Time enough for the strawberry blonde boy who had once been Gavin to take hold of her arm and pull back the sleeve, for the prick of a needle to add to her confusion. She tried to pull away, managing to catch a glimpse of Pan floundering to his feet above a paralysed Nash, trying to shield against the Moth which danced around him.

Noi, least-impaired, punched at Gavin, but the sandy-haired boy was between them, planting his feet, shield shimmering to visibility as it absorbed the energy.

"Not bad," he said, and then collapsed.

The sandy-haired boy’s body landed beside Madeleine, as a deeply blue-veined Moth lifted out of him. She gasped and tried to make heavy limbs move, staring into the boy’s green eyes, glazed and empty. It was so hard to lift her head. She heard Noi cry out, a shout of rage and despair, and then, nothing.