Shouri: Here's the next chapter, for Zmaj. I hope you're not the only one left reading this Zmaj, but I will keep posting updates just for you if you are. If anyone has some better suggestions for the chappie titles, let me know! Tell me the parts you love/hate! Oh, and I'm still waiting at least two more chapters (written, not posted) before starting with pairings, so if you have a request, tell me so I can consider it! Otherwise it'll end up 3X4 and 1X2X5, cause those are my favorites! Ja!

Chapter 11 Sleeping on the Edge of a Knife

Trowa awakens with a jerk. The room lights up, and the air is thick with a cloud of demi-demons, screeching as they leap and fly. One is perched on the light switch, keening. Most are centering on Duo as the braided boy rolls out of his bed, a wicked silver dagger gleaming in his hands, ready as the sleep clears from his eyes. Trowa shivers and cowers away instinctively. Quatre leaps up and into view, a number of soft, brightly colored demons of a type Trowa knows follow empaths clinging to his clothes.

He glances at the door, then reaches out and touches Duo's arm, seeming to bleed some of the tension out of it. Someone starts pounding on the door, and in an instant the electronic lock beeps and the door slides open. Trowa lets out a snarling roar, half-transforming and shifting to crouch on the end of his bed, prepared to leap at the intruder.

The Sweeper, the red head from dinner, jerks back, hand going for the gun gripped tucked into a holster on his hip. Duo, relaxed and more alert, still just keeps himself from skewering the man with his knife. Quatre reaches up fearlessly and grips Trowa's forearms, fingers brushing the soft black fur where it peeks out of the tears his sudden change in shape caused. Half panther shaped, and more than half wild, Trowa suddenly feels calm radiating into him, and he relaxes.

He is an empath... I knew I could trust him... the Sweeper, Roy, stares at the suddenly tame were with wide eyes, gasping in fear and shock. Duo slides the dagger back under his pillow with a curse, grumpy.

"Shit, Roy! You should know better dude! I coulda diced you up!" The braided boy is ignoring the fact that their unexpected visitor nearly got skewered by the teeth and claws of a jumpy were as well as several inches of his wicked dagger. Roy, still eyeing the were as he slowly melts back to human under Quatre's fingers with his green eyes closed lightly, cautiously releases his gun's grip.

"Duo! Something got in past the wards! It killed three agents, just tore out their throats! The priest managed to get up a temporary seal that'll keep everything else out, but we can't get in and out ourselves with it up, and we think the thing is still in here!" Duo tenses once more, and curses inventively in several different languages. Trowa growls. Roy looks at him distrustfully.

"Duo, kid, should you really have that thing in here with you while you're sleeping?" Duo blinks, and then gets a little angry at the insinuation. He frowns.

"What? Trowa? Or these?" He points above his at the wheeling creatures, and to the flock covering his bed and clinging to the walls. A few bolder individuals are even clinging to him, now that the bat demon perched on his shoulder has broken the ice. Roy blinks in confusion, then his eyes widen as he invokes his sight, and he chokes, gaping like a fish.

"Wha... when?... how?!" Duo snorts, and Trowa blinks, then drops down beside Quatre. Duo grins.

"You should stop worrying about me so much. I'm a big monster killer, I can make my own decisions and everything! Trow! Do me a favor, and find out if anyone knows anything about our visitor!" Trowa nods, then growls out a soft purr, and several of Duo's horde abandon him to gather over the man shaped cat. He hums at them and they respond. Duo ignores it, eyes still on Roy. The big man blinks and tears his eyes away from Trowa to look at the mad grin on Duo's face. He winces... Duo is pissed.

"Uh... I apologize for entering your room without your permission... it was a stupid thing to..." Duo interrupts him.

"Yes. It was a stupid thing to do, and next time you definitely won't be so lucky. The only thing that kept you in the land of the living was Quat's intervention. I was still asleep enough to have carved out your heart before I even realized I had a knife in my hands!" Quatre blushes. Roy backs up.

"I... well... uh, it won't happen again!..." Duo nods, mollified.

"Good. Sorry to rag on you, bro, but I get enough nightmares from dismembering the baddies, without having to deal with the guilt of bumping a friend in my sleep!... You said the infiltrator killed some agents?" Roy shakes his head and nods.

"Three. Sam MacGuillan, Laurie O'rel, and Stag Ironhoof. Fawn is hysterical..." Duo curses at the last name. Stag was one of their best hunters, a full-blooded Native American whose family had been in the business for nearly a hundred years. He and his younger brothers were always Shinigami's first choice for back up in a serious fight.

"Where?" Roy shivers.

"The lounge on the third level, right outside the barrack halls." Duo grins grimly.

"Is there any way to know for sure if it's still inside?" Roy blinks, about to answer when Trowa growls softly and he realizes the question is directed away from him, at the other two young men.

"These three saw it. It's a vamp all right, but as soon as they got a look at it, they hid. Vampires devour smaller demons without a second thought. It wasn't until it had already killed and eaten that they ran to you and started the ruckus... none of them know if it's still inside..." Duo nods.

"Tell them they did good, but next time I need them to run straight to me and raise the alarm." Trowa nods and croons, attention back on the trio that has settled around his shoulders. Duo looks at Quatre, who is frowning slightly in concentration.

"Quat?" The blonde smiles slightly.

"It's hard... there's a lot of panic and fear... strong grief... rage and sorrow... there is a trace of malice and bloodlust, but its faint, it could just be a resonance left... AH!" He jerks, a hand going to his head as he staggers back a step, panting. His eyes close. Duo reaches for him, Trowa catches his arm, and the two steady him as he shivers. Roy looks on in confusion.

"It's here... but it's shielded really well, I can't get a lock on its position." Duo nods.

"Does it feel like its gonna go on a rampage anytime in the next half hour?" Quatre opens his eyes, which are bleary, and shakes his head.

"No, it thinks it knows that we don't know its here, and that we have no way of finding out. I think it will sit tight until it feels the panic is over and then sneak out..." Duo nods with a sickening grin.

"Good." Roy stares still as Maxwell swings into action. The dagger reappears, along with several other weapons, sheaths, and holsters. Duo tosses a gun to Trowa and the were catches it nimbly. Duo grins.

"Don't shoot yourself in the foot... that thing is loaded with high silver content, exploding tips..." Trowa nods, checks the cartridge and the safety, then tucks the handgun into the front of his coverall, which is hanging open after having all the buttons burst off. Quatre is cuddling Sandrock to his chest, but he holds out a hand.

"I can handle anything semi-automatic..." Duo nods and sifts through the pile, tossing the short blonde a shoulder harness loaded with a matte black gun. Quatre slides it on, letting Sandrock go to unfurl delicate wings and hover around his head as he adjusts the straps. Duo dons the rest of the arsenal.

"Get everybody to the mess hall, and I mean everyone, wounded and all. And strip the armory. Anything silver, capable of decapitating the enemy, or explosive enough to take out the heart entirely." Roy pauses a minute, then whirls and complies as a sharp violet gaze skewers him.

Shouri: There... short and sweet, actions coming up soon.... please review? Pwease? gives desperate, sad uma eyes to the audience Oh, and as soon as you review Zmaj, I'll put up Chapter 12, though that may not always be the case. Tankiwa! Ja ne!