Chapter 10.

     I woke up in a bed and reached for Sigmund, and not finding him. Where was my penguin? Who had dared to steal him while I slept? I opened my eyes to see Nathaniel sitting in a chair next to the edge of my bed. His pants were, of course, leather, but they showed nothing, for once. He wore a lavender, silk blouse over it with short sleeves. His cheek was resting on his fist, eyes closed, leaning to the right on the armrest. In the next bed over was Cherry, sleeping on her side on top of the covers.

     I lifted my head and winced at the dizziness that tried to follow. The room was white, and there was that familiar smell of alcohol swabs. Hospital. Wake up in enough of them and you'll recognize them immediately. I was in another hospital. I never seem to get away from these things.

"Nathaniel?" I whispered. His head jerked, and I had to call him again before his eyes opened. Eyes the color of his shirt looked down at me with a smile.

"How are you doing, Anita?" He leaned in close so I could rub his cheek, his voice low and dreamy from sleep. I complied and stroked his soft cheek. How long had he been sitting there? How long had I been here?

"Nathaniel, what happened here?" I asked lowly.

"That Schuldig guy slammed your head into the wall." Nathaniel lifted his head, looking at me with affection. "Kannon thought you were dead. But I knew you weren't."

Schuldig? Green eyes. Du bist die Executioner... It came back to me in a rush.

"Where is Kannon? And Asher, and the others?" I asked quickly, grabbing his arm.

"Relax, they're fine." Nathaniel almost purred. "When that guy knocked you out, Asher attacked him. But he got away when that other guy with him jumped in. He reminded me of Zane."

I nodded to keep him going.

"Well, Asher is back in the hotel room, Cherry is right over there, Zane is back at the hotel, with Jason, Kannon, and those guys."

My heart nearly stopped. "Those guys?"

"Yeah, Youji and them?" Nathaniel smiled.

"You let assassins into my hotel room?!" I hissed, grabbing the collar of his silk shirt and dragging him to look me in the eye. He gulped.

"Relax, Anita," he stuttered, "they helped us. That Schuldig guy really put a hurting on Jason, and Youji attacked him. Asher decided they would come with us. Said we couldn't just let them go."

Asher. I sighed. Had the assassins really helped us? Why?

"But what about Zane?" I asked. "Nathaniel, they tried to kill me."

Nathaniel's eyes darted away from mine in nervousness. "Well, Zane said that you said that guy was some kind of telepath, and Aya said he hadn't wanted to attack Zane. He thought he was attacking Schuldig."

"Aya?"

"The guy with the sword?"

Katana. So his name was Aya. How long had I been out? They knew each other by first names? I get knocked out and the world is at peace. Boy, guess who felt like the anti-christ.

The door to the room opened and a slender Japanese doctor came in. "Ohayo, Blake-san."

"Do you speak English?" I winced, letting go of Nathaniel's shirt.

"Hai, a rittle." He nodded.

"How long was I asleep?"

"It eight juugo...fifteen morning," he said, stumbling. "You here ereben forty fibe lass night?"

A few hours. That wasn't so bad.

"You woke up a few times, but I guess you don't remember." Nathaniel smiled at me, leaning forward and folding his arms on the bed. He rested his head on them and let his hair spill around like mahogany liquid. I looked at the doctor's nametag and he saw me staring at the symbols.

"Shigemasu." He smiled at me. I nodded in gratitude.

"Doctor Shigemasu, am I going home now?"

"We see." He shone a penlight in my eyes and I tried my best not to squint. Cherry had awoken, and slipped over to my bed.

The Doctor pointed out a bandage on my cheek that I hadn't noticed. Where Zombie had cut me. I hadn't felt it till now, but it didn't hurt. I wondered how bad it was.

Until now, I hadn't received any cuts to my face. Bruises, yes, but now I saw flashes of my face as badly scarred as my arms or the rest of my body. I didn't want to look like Frankenstein's monster. The cut was low on my right cheek, near the jaw. I could live with that. Normally, the thought of scars didn't bother me, but I didn't want to ruin my face. Call it vanity. I'm a woman after all.

"You go home." Doctor Shigemasu smiled at me kindly.

"We got some clothes for you," Nathaniel said excitedly. Cherry, now standing behind Nathaniel, smiled and grabbed a pair of black jeans and the penguin shirt off the other bed, along with a black windbreaker, socks, underwear, a black lace bra, and my Nikes.

"You brought the penguin shirt?" My face was aflame.

Cherry smiled. "Now you have to wear it."

The doc left to complete my discharge papers and Nathaniel turned around while Cherry handed the articles of clothing to me, as I was ready for them. I slipped the Nikes on, feeling air on my stomach and back as I bent over. It felt uncomfortable. You never realize just how much security you get just from having clothes that covered everything. The shirt wasn't that short, but it showed a small band of my skin just above the waistband of my jeans. The windbreaker at least covered my arms.

"Kannon got us a car." Nathaniel grinned at my penguin shirt as I muttered and kept trying to tug it down.

"Good then, let's go," I said hurriedly. I wanted those assassins out of my hotel room. I wanted them in a nice cozy little jail cell. Doctor Shigemasu showed up in time to escort me out, as he watched me walk to see how steady on my feet I was. I was pretty steady. One advantage of being a human servant was that I healed faster than normal. Sometimes days or weeks faster than I should have.

Nathaniel and Cherry took me out to the car, a little gray Nissan with the steering wheel on the wrong side. There was a kid leaning his bottom against it. He was thin and dressed in a military style outfit, gray-blue with a high collar. His hair was a short, soft brown that curled around his baby face. He turned to look to us as we neared.

"Hey," Nathaniel called to him, "get off the car."

The kid smiled slightly at him, and his midnight blue eyes turned on me. I could see in his eyes that he recognized me. And I had never seen him before. Why did everyone seem to recognize us here? Were we in the paper? America's Zombie Queen visits Japan?

He stood up, perfectly calm, as if he had merely paused to rest. He had been waiting for us. But for what? I'm sure he wasn't the Easter Bunny. Hiding eggs around the car.

With a small toss of his head that flung his hair out of his eyes, he stepped off, walking calmly away.

"Creepy," Cherry muttered. Indeed. I had a feeling there was more to this encounter than indicated. If he had wanted to cause trouble, I'm sure he wouldn't have been alone. No, he had merely been sent to watch. And now he was off to tell whoever it was that sent him. Of course, I couldn't prove that. I watched his thin back as he walked away, calmly. Just out for a stroll. Riiight.

"Let's go." Nathaniel walked for the car.

"Wait." I reached out for him. "I still got another twenty-four hours for my death to be executed. How do we know that kid didn't sabotage the car?"

Nathaniel approached it cautiously, sniffing where the kid had leaned against it, then over the other parts of the car, kneeling down to sniff at the undercarriage. It was weird to watch what appeared to be a human doing that.

"He didn't touch anything but there." He pointed to where the kid had leaned. Cherry walked over to the driver's side, keys in her hand. She opened the door cautiously, sniffing at the inside.

"It's clean," she said finally. "It just kinda smells hot."

I looked after the disappearing kid as I got into the passenger seat and Nathaniel climbed into the back.

"We brought your guns, Anita." Nathaniel leaned over the edge of my seat to hand me the Browning and the Firestar in their holsters. I felt greatly relieved to have them back, sorta like missing a wedding ring for most folks. Aww, honey, a fully automatic! You shouldn't have!

Wait. That was a scary thought, considering who gave me most of my coolest toys. Edward. I'd often thought about my relationship with Edward. Were we friends? Yes. Would we ever be more? No way in hell. We might kill each other in cold blood, but we'd never kiss or hold hands. Who the hell is writing my life? They must be found and put out of my misery. (Authors: O_O)

"Get us home quickly," I told Cherry.

When I got upstairs in the hotel, I flung open my door to find it untouched.

"They're in Jason's room," Nathaniel said from behind me. Damn. I hurried down to Jason's room, deprived of my dramatic entrance, and flung open his door. Anita enters, take two. Jason looked up from the small table that served as a dinette with Youji sitting at it with him, small sunglasses perched on his nose. They were eating a McDonald's breakfast. Egg McMuffins. Just like all werewolves and assassins did.

Kannon was curled up on the couch, snoozing in a little ball. Someone had pulled a blanket over him. Zane had a McMuffin himself, leaning back against the counter beyond the dinette. The others were nowhere in sight.

Kannon's head jerked up when I flung the door open, and he blinked at me sleepily.

"Nice shirt, Anita." Jason winked at me with a smirk. I saw Youji copy the wink at me with him. Great, just great.

"Anita, are you okay?" Kannon asked, sitting up and holding the blanket in his hands in puzzlement.

"I'm perfectly fine," I said crossly. "Now what are they doing here?!"

"Shhhh." Jason put his finger to his lips. "Two of them are sleeping."

"My ass!" I yelled at him and Nathaniel closed the door behind us. "What they doing here?!"

"Anita, calm down," Zane rumbled. "We brought them here, because, one, they aren't our enemy any longer. Two, Asher made that decision. Three, they need our help now."

"They need our help." I tried to take deep cleansing breaths. "About what? Zane, they were tying to kill me. WHY are they in MY hotel room?!"

"The kid," Jason said. "The one Sanesuke took."

The kid. I had forgotten about him. If he wasn't already dead, he would be soon if we didn't save him. I looked to Kannon.

"Can you contact Sanesuke to talk?" I asked. Kannon looked uncomfortable.

"I can." He nodded.

"But?"

"But he probably won't listen to you."

"He'll fucking listen to me. He better," I snarled. "Where are the other two sleeping?"

"In Asher's room." Jason nodded. I walked right past them to Asher's room door and opened it. Aya had curled up on his side at the edge of the bed. He had taken his jacket off, and his boots were by the edge of the bed. On the other side of the bed, Goggles lay on his back, the blanket pulled up to his chest. One bare arm hung off the bed. They looked so tired I couldn't scream at them. They had gone from being enemy I must kill, to real, sleeping people. Asher's coffin was near the edge of the bed.

I heard Zane stepping up behind me. "Look yummy, don't they?"

I closed the door, turning to face Zane with a look. He was smiling, still looking at the door as if he could somehow still see through it. I sighed and walked away from the door.

"Anita, they're here because Asher said they had to stay. He didn't want us to lose them. And Youji has been telling us more about that Schuldig guy," Jason said to redirect my mind back to business. Youji turned in his chair, McMuffin in a wrapper in his hand.

"He speaks English?" I asked, trying to relax about the fact these guys had tried to kill me. Why was I so agitated? Who wouldn't be? I kinda agreed with Asher's reasoning. Keep your friends close, but enemies closer. Yeah, yeah.

"No, Kannon translated that, and we just had breakfast." Jason smiled and took another bite of his McMuffin.

"Schwarz," Youji said in a deep but soft voice.

"Schwarz is like a kind of enemy faction," Jason filled in. "They are both assassin groups, and apparently, both were told to kill you."

"Schwarz," I repeated, and was suddenly transported to the movie Spaceballs. I see your Schwarz is as big as mine. May the Schwarz be with you. They sure as hell had been with me. I wanted them to go away.

"By who?" I crossed my arms and tried to look menacing. Not easy to do in a penguin shirt. Youji just gave me a lazy grin, and I saw his eyes look me down, then up. I tried to stop his progress by pinning him with a glare.

"They don't know who originally asked," Jason answered. "They were just informed you were to be killed."

Of course. A middle man. Edward had one too. How annoying.

"And now they don't want to kill me, and need my help to get their kid back," I finished. Jason nodded.

"Let me ask you this." I walked up to Youji. "Why are you doing with a kid as an assassin?"

He blinked soft green eyes at me over the top of his shades. Dirty blonde hair waved around his face. He reminded me of perfume or cologne models. He was one of those men who was more pretty than handsome, but still masculine enough to be unmistakably male. Like Jean Claude.

Kannon translated for me, seeing Youji was completely lost except for the fact I was demanding something from him. He lowered his gaze and answered Kannon.

"The kid, Omi, he says is his name, has been a part of that faction longer than he himself has."

That took me by surprise. "How old is he?" I asked.

"Seventeen."

A teenager. And killing for longer than this grown up man had. He had an earlier start than I had. I hadn't started killing till the last couple years. I hadn't needed to. But then again, I wasn't an assassin. Though lately I was starting to wonder. That meant the kid had to be good to have lived this long. Bad assassins were weeded out quickly. It was natural selection. He just hadn't considered meeting up with vampires.

"He wants to know what you are," Kannon said from the couch. I hadn't heard Youji speak, too absorbed by my thoughts.

"I'm a necromancer," I said, not bothering to wonder why he asked 'what' and not 'who'. "I raise the dead."

Kannon translated and I saw the color drain out of Youji's face. He looked away from me, putting the muffin down, his fingers moving to his temple as he looked down at the table. I'd never gotten that reaction. Hatred, confusion, interest, desire, but never this sudden upset.