Under a Blood Red Moon

By: Lady DeathAngel

Disclaimer: don't own them, don't sue me

Warnings: language and more descriptions of dead bodies (this one might be a little worse than last time)

A/N: I'm really sorry my updates are so few and far in between. I've been crazy busy lately. :p Anyway, here's the next chapter. This one doesn't do much plot developing, but there are some sweet (more accurately bittersweet) moments between Duo and Hilde. ^.^ Anyway, please enjoy the chapter.



Hilde was having another nightmare when she got the call. At first she thought that maybe the shrill ringing was just another element of the monstrous dream, but gradually it filtered into her consciousness and she almost fell out of bed when she rolled to grab the receiver.

"Hello?" She said groggily.

"Yes, Ms. Schbieker? We need you to come down to the station . . ."

It took Hilde about ten minutes to get dressed and to her car. She drove to the police station in a haze, wondering just what was going on. They hadn't given her any information. They'd just said that they needed her to go to the station.

The minute she got there she got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Another attack had happened from the looks of things, but just who it was she didn't know. Yet. And she wasn't at all sure that she wanted to know period.

"Hilde?"

Hilde turned quickly to find herself gazing into a pair of warm brown eyes behind wire-rim glasses. "Yeah, that's me."

"I'm Lady Une." The woman said, extending a long, elegant hand.

Hilde shook it a little awkwardly.

"Um, not to be rude but why am I here?"

Lady Une looked at her oddly.

"They didn't tell you?"

Hilde shook her head and the other woman sighed.

"We need you to identify two bodies. We think they belong to Trant Marks and Missy Willet but we aren't sure."

Hilde felt as if someone had ripped her stomach out with ice-cold pliers. Trant and Missy? It couldn't be Trant and Missy. Trant and Missy were probably at Missy's apartment sleeping or having sex or something. Trant and Missy were most definitely not dead. Trant and Missy couldn't be dead. They just couldn't.

Hilde didn't hear another word of what Lady Une said, she just followed her numbly to a room in the back of the station. She nearly threw up when she saw the two bodies on the table. Whatever had killed them, it had been in a hurry. She'd expected them to be pale with no blood in or on their bodies. That's what the papers had said the bodies had been, completely bloodless. But these . . .

There was really no way to describe it. The bodies were mangled, and while there was no blood in the bodies, it was smeared all over. There were two large holes in their abdomens and it looked like their insides had been pushed aside while the killer had been looking for something. Their throats were almost gone. But it was their faces that sent Hilde to her knees.

She'd have recognized Trant's face anywhere. The lean, chiseled features, the dark hair, and the nose that she'd broken two years before that he'd never gone to get fixed. If that hadn't convinced her, the clothes he was wearing did. The black shirt and slacks that he'd modeled for her before going to pick up Missy, his dead date.

"It's them." She said, her hands clenching into fists on her thighs. "It's them." And then she was up and running out of the room.

She had to get away. She hated it here. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare because it had to be. It had to be a nightmare. She stumbled down an empty hall before collapsing and sobbing. How? How had this happened to them? She'd been talking to Trant earlier that day. Teasing him about his taste in women, telling him that he'd better not stay out too late because she needed him at work . . .

It just wasn't possible. But it was true wasn't it? There weren't going to be any therapists or cruel older brothers to convince her otherwise. And no matter how much she wished that she could wake up and find out that it was all a cruel joke, she couldn't. Because when she woke up the next day it would all be real. And Trant would still be dead.



~*~



It was gray outside. The kind of dull gray that makes a person want to climb back into bed and not come out until the sun does. It wasn't even raining. It was just gray. And cold. And absolutely wretched.

It had been four days since the last attack but no one had stopped talking about it, as was the norm anymore. It was interesting though. This time a man had been killed. It was the first time since the attacks had started that a man had been made a victim.

None of the resident vampyres could make heads or tails of the situation. They still didn't know what they were up against, and ever since the last attack they hadn't been able to concentrate. Well, not everyone, just Duo.

Ever since the first time he'd met Hilde and he'd given her his pendant, he'd had a connection with her that he'd never had with anyone else. He could always feel what she felt and at the moment her pain was ripping him apart. He wanted nothing more than to comfort her, but among the feelings of pain and anguish and grief, he sensed that she was tired of people coming by everyday with apple pies and empty condolences. She'd probably just think that he was another pie bearing visitor if he went to see her.

Duo wasn't just feeling what Hilde was feeling however. He had his only feelings to deal with. The main one being hatred directed at, who else? Dorothy Catalonia. Ever since Trant had been killed and Hilde had slipped into a depression, Dorothy had been giddy. There was really no word accurate enough to describe the bitch, but giddy came close.

Not for the first time Duo wondered if maybe Dorothy had had something to do with what had happened to Trant. Of course, that would mean that she'd had something to do with the other attacks too, and Duo wouldn't put it past her, but he wasn't sure if that was at all accurate. Dorothy wouldn't have stopped bragging if she'd been behind the murders, and all she'd done was express her anger about the fact that people were accusing vampires of killing people.

Still, Dorothy was very happy about the suffering that both Hilde and Duo were going through and it made Duo want to strangle her more than ever. That was why Duo finally dragged himself out of the house and to Hilde's. He wasn't sure just how much longer he could hold out before he gave in to his impulses and killed Dorothy.

Hilde answered the door on the third knock. Duo's heart went out to her when he caught sight of her face. Her eyes were red and ringed with black circles. Her hair was hanging limply in her eyes and her big shirt and shorts were wrinkled. That wasn't the worst thing to see though. To Duo the worst thing was when his eyes locked with hers and he saw that their pretty blue depths were empty and lacking a sparkle that had almost always been with her.

She bit her lip when she saw him.

"Hi." She said softly, backing up to let him in.

He walked in and watched as she closed the door slowly.

"I'm really sorry about the mess." She said. "But I, um, haven't had much time to, you know, clean."

Duo just nodded. He didn't know what to say. Being this close to her . . . he could feel her grief like it was his. In fact, it was the same feeling he'd had when he'd realized that he could never be with his family again. The same feeling he'd had when his parents, and then his best friend, and finally his little sister had died. But no one had said anything to comfort him back then, and he had no idea how to comfort Hilde now.

"I'd offer you something to drink or eat but I think all my dishes are dirty. It's been a madhouse in here. People coming in and out and in and out, eating and saying how sorry they are about Trant and then leaving this place even worse than it was . . ."

"It's okay." He said, interrupting her rambles. "I understand."

She leaned against the door and tilted her head back.

"I'm glad somebody does. The most sincere people who've been in here are a few of Trant's old flames and some other garage people. And even they don't fully understand . . . the most I've heard out of these people is 'Don't let it get you down. Move on, don't dwell on it.' but do you know what a load of bullshit that is?"

"Yeah. It's weird but I remember someone saying the same exact thing to me after my sister died."

Hilde looked at him with wide eyes.

"What'd you do?"

His smile held no humor at all.

"I tried to strangle her. And then her brother stopped me, although he told me once he only did it because he didn't want me to feel guilty over her, not because he didn't want her dead."

"Your life sounds almost as screwed up as mine." Hilde said.

"Could be."

Hilde shrugged. "Maybe." She studied him a moment before talking. "Look, if you want, you can leave. I'm sure you've got something better to do than be here."

Duo shook his head and took a step toward her, enveloping her in his arms.

"My schedule is completely clear." He said. "And besides, there's nowhere I'd rather be than here."

Her arms wove around his waist and she smiled against his neck.

"Thank you." She whispered.

Duo started when he felt her start to shake and the tears began.

"Hilde . . ."

"I'm really glad you're here." She said. "I was getting so tired of feeling so alone . . ."

And then she couldn't speak anymore. She sobbed into Duo's shoulder, and he held her tighter. He hated to see her like this. He wanted everything to be right for her.

'If it was up to me,' Duo thought. 'You'd never feel alone again.'

"I know." She murmured through her tears.



~*~



Relena didn't know what to make of her bodyguard. He was with her what seemed like twenty-four hours a day. Every time she turned around, he was there. Every time she came out of the bathroom, he was there. He was there when she opened her balcony to let Teeny in, he was there when she went next door to talk to Meiran. He was there handing her sugar when she made lemonade and he was even there brushing her hair for her before bed sometimes.

She couldn't say she minded it so much. It had been years since anyone had payed this much attention to her or cared this much about her. And it had been even longer since it had been someone so good looking. And damn was he good looking.

His name, he said, was Heero Yuy. He wasn't very tall, but he wasn't short either. He obviously worked out but his muscles didn't bulge like overripe watermelons, and his body was, in essence, just right. He had chocolate brown hair that went in all directions, even when Relena tried to tame it (something he'd only let her do once and had, since then, stayed away from her when she had a hairbrush in her hands), but it wasn't unattractive at all. It only lent to his mysterious and oh-so-sexy air.

He had a nice nose and wonderfully sensual lips, but the best thing about him, by far, were his eyes. They were a beautiful shade of blue. A blue so deep at times they looked black and they were the most captivating eyes she'd ever had the opportunity to gaze into. Relena honestly felt like she'd stepped into some kind of fantasy novel. First attacked by a monster, now protected by a god.

Aside from his name however, the most she knew about him was that he was good friends with Duo Maxwell, had lived at the manor with a few other people, including Dorothy Catalonia (a woman that Relena had been at odds with for almost a year), and used to work at a garage. She'd tried to ask her father about him, but he'd only told her he was very qualified and not to worry about it, lest she aggravate her injuries. Which, she decided, she'd be more likely to do if she was busy bursting brain cells wondering about her new roommate.

She could have asked him about himself, she supposed. Thusfar, however, they had avoided any real soul-bearing conversations. It was an unwritten agreement of sorts. Don't ask, don't tell, and we'll be happier that way. So, he knew nothing about her beyond the fact that she was the daughter of the mayor, and she knew nothing about him beside what he'd told her (that would be the aforementioned facts).

That was why she didn't know what to make of him. Had he always been so quiet? Had he always been so mysterious? If not then what had made him this way? Did he have some deep, dark secret? Had something happened long ago to make him this way? These and many other questions kept flitting through Relena's mind. Every once in a while reason would permeate all of her fantasies and she'd realize that she was reading way too much into things.

He was still kind of fun to contemplate about though. Only problem was, most of the time that she was contemplating him she also happened to stare at him as well.

"You really like to stare at people don't you?" Heero said drily one day.

Relena blinked and then flushed.

"Um . . . sorry. I was just . . . uh . . ."

"Don't worry about it." He said.

She chewed her thumbnail and smiled.

"Okay."

He went back to reading the same book he'd been reading for the past day and a half and Relena sighed and picked up her own book. It was, ironically, a horror story. For some reason, she insisted on finishing it despite her earlier encounter with a monster even more hideous than the fictional ones created by the author. She was going to have another nightmare she knew, but she couldn't put the book down.

Heero glanced over at the young woman he was protecting and raised an eyebrow even though she couldn't see him. Was she still trying to read that stupid book? Judging by the way her eyes flitted back and forth across the page and the frantic movements of her teeth against her nail, she was. He shook his head. Of all the idiotic things . . .

He sighed softly and shook his head. She was insane, he knew. But it was kind of . . . cute in a strange way. She was also very pretty and smart. And a lot like someone he'd known before. Long, long ago. He decided to veer his mind away from that subject and instead turned back to the book in his hands.



~*~

A/N: So, what did you think? Please let me know in a review. It'd definitely be appreciated. ^.^ Anyway, thanks bunches to all of you who've already reviewed and I hope you're enjoying the story so far. ^.~